Leadership

See below for annotated biographies of leaders of the Free Soil Party. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


HALE, John P., 1806-1873, New Hampshire, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator.  Member of the anti-slavery Liberty Party.  President of the Free Soil Party, 1852.  Elected to Congress in 1842, he opposed the 21st Rule suppressing anti-slavery petition to Congress.  Refused to support the annexation of Texas in 1845.  Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1846, he was the first distinctively anti-slavery Senator.  Adamantly opposed slavery for his 16 years in office.  In 1851, served as Counsel in the trial of rescued slave Shadrach.  In 1852, he was nominated for President of the United States, representing the Free Soil Party.  As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. 

(Blue, 2005, pp. 8, 35, 51-54, 74, 100-102, 121, 126, 152, 164, 170, 205, 220; Filler, 1960, pp. 187, 189, 213, 247; Goodell, 1852, p. 478; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 20, 28, 29, 33-37, 43-46, 51, 60, 63-65, 68, 72, 254n; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 50, 54, 298; Sewell, 1976; pp. 134-138, 142, 154-155, 157, 162, 168, 232-233, 254, 280, 281, 285n, 289, 308, 341, 355-356, 365;; Sorin, 1971, pp. 130, 132; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, pp. 33-34; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, p. 105; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 9, p. 862; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

HALE, John Parker, senator, born in Rochester, New Hampshire, 31 March, 1806; died in Dover, New Hampshire, 19 November, 1873. He studied at Phillips Exeter academy, and was graduated at Bowdoin in 1827. He began his law studies in Rochester with Jeremiah H. Woodman, and continued them with Daniel M. Christie in Dover, where he was admitted to the bar, 20 August, 1830. In March, 1832, he was elected to the state house of representatives as a Democrat. On 22 March, 1834, he was appointed U. S. District attorney by President Jackson, was reappointed by President Van Buren, 5 April, 1838, and was moved, 17 June, 1841, by President Tyler on party grounds. On 8 March, 1842, he was elected to congress, and took his seat, 4 December, 1843. He opposed the 21st rule suppressing anti-slavery petitions, but supported Polk and Dallas in the presidential canvass of 1844, and was nominated for re-election on a general ticket with three associates. The New Hampshire legislature, 28 December, 1844, passed resolutions instructing their representatives to vote for the annexation of Texas, and President Polk, in his message of that year, advocated annexation. On 7 January, 1845, Mr. Hale wrote his noted Texas letter, refusing to support annexation. The state convention of his party was reassembled at Concord, 12 February, 1845, and under the lead of Franklin Pierce struck Mr. Hale's name from the ticket, and substituted that of John Woodbury. Mr. Hale was supported as an independent candidate. On 11 March, 1845, three Democratic members were elected, but there was no choice of a fourth. Subsequent trials, with the same result, took place 23 September and 29 November, 1845, and 10 March, 1846. During the repeated contests, Mr. Hale thoroughly canvassed the state. At his North Church meeting in Concord, 5 June, 1845. Mr. Pierce was called out to reply, and the debate is memorable in the political history of New Hampshire. At the election of 10 March, 1846, the Whigs and Independent Democrats also defeated a choice for governor, and elected a majority of the state legislature. On 3 June, 1846, Mr. Hale was elected speaker; on 5 June, the Whig candidate, Anthony Colby, was elected governor; and on 9 June. Mr. Hale was elected U. S. Senator for the term to begin 4 March, 1847. In a letter from John G. Whittier, dated Andover, Massachusetts, 3d mo., 18th, 1846, he says of Mr. Hale: “He has succeeded, and his success has broken the spell which has hitherto held reluctant Democracy in the embraces of slavery. The tide of anti-slavery feeling, long held back by the dams and dykes of party, has at last broken over all barriers, and is washing down from your northern mountains upon the slave-cursed south, as if Niagara stretched its foam and thunder along the whole length of Mason and Dixon's line. Let the first wave of that northern flood, as it dashes against the walls of the capitol, bear thither for the first time an anti-slavery senator.” On 20 October, 1847, he was nominated for president by a National liberty Convention at Buffalo, with Leicester King, of Ohio, for vice-president, but declined, and supported Mr. Van Buren, who was nominated at the Buffalo Convention of 9 August, 1848. On 6 December, 1847, he took his seat in the Senate with thirty-two Democrats and twenty-one Whigs, and remained the only distinctively anti-slavery senator until joined by Salmon P. Chase, 3 December, 1849, and by Charles Sumner, 1 December, 1851. Mr. Hale began the agitation of the slavery question almost immediately upon his entrance into the Senate, and continued it in frequent speeches during his sixteen years of service in that body. He was an orator of handsome person, clear voice, and winning manners, and his speeches were replete with humor and pathos. His success was due to his powers of natural oratory, which, being exerted against American chattel-slavery, seldom failed to arouse sympathetic sentiments in his audiences. Mr. Hale opposed flogging and the spirit-ration in the navy, and secured the abolition of the former by law of 28 September, 1850, and of the latter by law of 14 July, 1862. He served as counsel in 1851 in the important trials that arose out of the forcible rescue of the fugitive slave Shadrach from the custody of the U. S. marshal in Boston. In 1852 he was nominated at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, by the Free-Soil Party for president, with George W. Julian as vice-president, and they received 157,685 votes. His first senatorial term ended, and he was succeeded by Charles G. Atherton, a Democrat, on 4 March, 1853, on which day Franklin Pierce was inaugurated president. The following winter Mr. Hale began practising law in New York City. But the repeal of the Missouri Compromise measures again overthrew the Democrats of New Hampshire; they failed duly to elect U. S. Senators in the legislature of June, 1854, and in March, 1855, they completely lost the state. On 13 June, 1855, James Bell, a Whig, was elected U. S. Senator for six years from 3 March, 1855, and Mr. Hale was chosen for the four years of the unexpired term of Mr. Atherton, deceased. On 9 June, 1858, he was re-elected for a full term of six years, which ended on 4 March, 1865. On 10 March, 1865, he was commissioned minister to Spain, and went immediately to Madrid. Mr. Hale was recalled in due course, 5 April, 1869, took leave, 29 July, 1869, and returned home in the summer of 1870. Mr. Hale, without sufficient cause, attributed his recall to a quarrel between himself and Horatio J. Perry, his secretary of legation, in the course of which a charge had been made that Mr. Hale's privilege, as minister, of importing free of duty merchandize for his official or personal use, had been exceeded and some goods put upon the market and sold. Mr. Hale's answer was, that he had been misled by a commission-merchant, instigated by Mr. Perry. The latter was moved 28 June, 1869. Mr. Hale had been one of the victims of the “National hotel disease,” and his physical and mental faculties were much impaired for several years before his death. Immediately upon his arrival home he was prostrated by paralysis, and shortly afterward received a fracture of one of the small bones of the leg when thrown down by a runaway horse. In the summer of 1873 his condition was further aggravated by a fall that dislocated his hip. Appleton’s 1892 p. 29.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, p. 105;

HALE, JOHN PARKER (March 31, 1806--November 19, 1873), lawyer, politician, diplomat, was born at Rochester, New Hampshire. He was descended from Robert Hale who settled in Charlestown, in Massachusetts, in 1632. His parents were John Parker and Lydia C. (O'Brien) Hale, the latter the daughter of an Irish refugee who had died in the American service during the Revolution. His father was a successful lawyer but his death in 1819 left the family in straitened circumstances and it was due to the courage and self-sacrifice of his mother that John was enabled to attend Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, graduating from the latter in 1827. He then studied law  at Rochester and Dover, was admitted to the bar in 1830, and began practice at the latter town, maintaining residence there henceforth. When he left college he had gained a reputation for combined brilliance and laziness. In his profession he came to be known not as a learned, but as a "ready lawyer," possessed of tact and oratorical ability, and remarkably skilled in extricating himself from untenable positions (Bell, post, p. 417). He rose rapidly and made a reputation as a successful jury lawyer. It was doubtless due to this fact, as well as to his democratic principles, that he was an advocate of increasing the powers of the jury and making them judges of the Jaw as well as the fact.

Hale's political career began in 1832 with his election to the state legislature. In 1834 he was appointed United States district attorney and held office until removed by President Tyler in 1841. A year later he was elected to Congress. New Hampshire was a Democratic stronghold and Hale followed conventional doctrines. His early speeches have a somewhat demagogic tone, but he showed independence, and shortly before the end of his term, he proposed a limitation of the area open to slavery should Texas be added to the Union. His attitude on the Texas question finally led to a breach with the party when in January 1845 he addressed a letter to his constituent s denouncing annexation as promoting the interests of slavery and "eminently calculated to provoke the scorn of earth and the judgment of heaven" (Exeter News-Letter, January 20, 1845). In a special convention, the Democrats on February 12 revoked his renomination and solemnly read him out of the party. With the backing of some loyal friends, he proceeded to organize an independent movement. As a result, the New Hampshire legislature in 1846 passed under control of a combination of Whigs and independent Democrats, which on June 9 elected the insurgent Hale to the United States Senate for a six-year term commencing March 4, 1847. It was the most notable anti-slavery success hitherto achieved.

For some time, until joined by Chase and Sumner, Hale occupied a most conspicuous place, and if excluded from all party councils and responsibilities, he was at least free to assail slavery without the restraint which party membership imposed. His most notable speech was probably the one delivered in reply to Webster's address of March 7, 1850, on the territorial question (Congressional Globe, 31 Congress, 1 Session, App. pp. 1054-65). His long speeches, however, are in general inferior to his brief extemporaneous utterances in the course of debate. A voiding the excesses of some anti-slavery advocates, good humored, witty, and eloquent, he was personally popular, although his sallies occasionally provoked outbursts of wrath among the Southern members. It was during his first term in the Senate that he secured the abolition of flogging in the navy, a reform which he had urged from the time of his appearance in the lower house. His further argument that discipline should be more intelligent and humane, that the navy should offer advantages to the ordinary seaman which would make service attractive to the best grade of young men, rewarding good conduct with promotion and better opportunities (Ibid., 32 Congress, 1 Session, p. 449), was decidedly in advance of his time. He constantly urged the abolition of the grog ration as well and this was finally brought about in 1862. He himself considered these reforms the outstanding accomplishments of his Senate career, and in deference to his opinion they are recorded on his monument in the State House yard at Concord. In addition to his anti-slavery activity in the Senate, Hale conducted various platform campaigns on the subject and was a well-known lecturer throughout the North. He also appeared as counsel in cases arising under the Fugitive-Slave law, including the famous Anthony Burns case involving Theodore Parker and other eminent Bostonians. His prominence in the anti-slavery cause led to his nomination for the presidency by the Liberty party in 1847, but he withdrew in favor of Van Buren when the Free-Soil party absorbed the Liberty party in 1848. In 1852 he accepted the nomination of the Free-Soilers and polled 150,000 votes.

On the expiration of his first term in the Senate Hale resumed legal practice and for a short time lived in New York. By 1855, however, the anti-slavery coalition again controlled the New Hampshire legislature and after a prolonged contest he was elected to serve out the unexpired term of Charles G. Atherton, deceased. Three years later he was reelected for a full term. He had become one of the most prominent Republicans in the country, although the influence of his earlier Democratic affiliations was still perceptible, and it was reported that the power of the national party leaders was exerted in his behalf, inasmuch as the legislature was reluctant to break the local precedents which favored rotation. This term, however, added little to his fame, although he was active on the floor and prominent in the adoption of the various measures which at last gave slavery its quietus. During the war he held the chairmanship of the committee on naval affairs. The standard of public morals had relaxed, and in naval matters, to quote Secretary Welles, there had developed a "debauched system of personal and party favoritism" (post, I, 482), especially pernicious in the services of construction and supply. There was a navy-yard in New Hampshire, and Hale was admittedly careless, easy going, accommodating, and not over careful as to the character of his professional and political associations. His friends, who have always insisted on his personal honesty, believed that he was imposed upon by unscrupulous and designing parties, and Secretary Welles, that he was trying to use his chairmanship for personal gain and political advantage. Senators Grimes and Foot both expressed disapproval of his conduct and in 1864 when he was a candidate for reelection the impression was abroad that the leaders in Washington would be glad to see his retirement. Late in 1863 an investigation disclosed that he had accepted a fee from one J. M. Hunt, convicted of fraud against the government, and had appeared on his behalf before the secretary of war. Although exonerated by the Senate judiciary committee of any violation of law, the fact that its report included a bill making such practice illegal in future (Congressional Globe, 38 Congress, I Session, pp. 420, 460, 555) told heavily against him and undoubtedly contributed to a decisive defeat by the Republican caucus at Concord, June 9, 1864. His speech on the propose d bill (Ibid., pp. 559 ff.) does not indicate a keen sense of moral values and lends color to the comment of the Boston Daily Courier, January 1, 1864, that though he did not mean to be dishonest or dishonorable, "his perceptions were befogged by the atmosphere of fraud, corruption and crime surrounding him in the party to which he is attached."

In March 1865 Hale was appointed minister to Spain although he would have preferred the Paris legation. According to Sumner, "President Lincoln selected Hale out of general kindness and good-will to the ' lame ducks,' " and "wished to break his fall" (E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, vol. IV, 1893, p. 25 5). His training and temperament were not suited for such a post, and he was handicapped by ignorance of the language. As far as can be judged by the somewhat meager records in the Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs his services were not especially significant. In 1869 he became embroiled in a singularly bitter quarrel with H. J. Perry, secretary of the legation, and in addition to the personal questions involved, the minister was charged with serious moral delinquencies involving the Queen of Spain and with having abused his importation franchise. Hale admitted signing certain con1promising documents but pleaded that the secretary had laid them before him without explaining their contents which were in Spanish. He was recalled April 5, 1869, and took leave July 29. His strength had already begun to fail, having been seriously impaired by the famous National Hotel epidemic of 1857, and he spent some further time abroad in a vain que st for health. Returning to New Hampshire in June 1870, he suffered a paralytic stroke soon afterward and his la st years were spent in semi-invalidism. His wife was Lucy Lambert of South Berwick, Me.; his daughter, Lucy Lambert Hale, the wife of William Eaton Chandler [q.v.]. As a crusader in a humanitarian cause Hale ranked among the great men of the day, but his qualities were not those best calculated to produce constructive legislation or successful administration.

[The New Hampshire Historical Society has a considerable collection of letters and miscellaneous manuscripts relating to John P. Hale. Other sources include The Hale Statue (1892), published by the New Hampshire General Court; E. S. Stearns, Genealogy and Family Hist. of the State of New Hampshire (1908), III, 1044-49; I. W. Stuart, Life of Captain Nathan Hale (2nd ed., 1856); C. H. Bell, Th e Bench and Bar of New Hampshire (1894), pp. 415-18; Diary of Gideon Welles (3 vols., 1911); G. W. Julian, "A Presidential Candidate of 1852," Century, October 1896; J. H. Ela, " Hon. John P. Hale," Granite Monthly, July 1880; Boston Transcript, New York Tribune, November 20, 1873; Independent Statesman (Concord, New Hampshire), November 27, 1873.]

W.A.R.  


ADAMS, Charles Francis, 1807-1886, newspaper publisher and editor.  Free Soil Party nominee for Vice President of the U.S. (lost), 1848.  Son of former President John Quincy Adams.  Grandson of President John Adams.  Opposed annexation of Texas, on opposition to expansion of slavery in new territories.  Formed “Texas Group” within Massachusetts Whig Party.  Formed and edited newspaper, Boston Whig, in 1846.

(Adams, 1900; Duberman, 1961; Goodell, 1852, p. 478; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 32-33; Pease, 1965, pp. 445-452; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 51, 298; Sewell, 1976; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 12-13. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 40-48).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, Charles Francis, diplomatist, son of John Quincy Adams, born in Boston, 18 August, 1807; died there, 21 November, 1886. When two years old he was taken by his father to St. Petersburg, where he learned German, French, and Russian. Early in 1815 he travelled all the way from St. Petersburg to Paris with his mother in a private carriage, a difficult journey at that time, and not unattended with danger. His father was soon afterward appointed minister to England, and the little boy was placed at an English boarding-school. The feelings between British and Americans was then more hostile than ever before or since, and young Adams was frequently called upon to defend with his fists the good name of his country. When he returned after two years to America, his father placed him in the Boston Latin school, and he was graduated at Harvard College in 1825, shortly after his father's inauguration as president of the United States. He spent two years in Washington, and then returned to Boston, where he studied law in the office of Daniel Webster, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1828. The next year he married the youngest daughter of Peter Chardon Brooks, whose elder daughters were married to Edward Everett and Reverend Nathaniel Frothingham. From 1831 to 1836 Mr. Adams served in the Massachusetts legislature. He was a member of the Whig Party, but, like all the rest of his vigorous and free-thinking family, he was extremely independent in politics and inclined to strike out into new paths in advance of the public sentiment. After 1836 he came to differ more and more widely with the leaders of the Whig Party with whom he had hitherto acted. In 1848 the newly organized Free-Soil Party, consisting largely of Democrats, held its convention at Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren for president and Charles Francis Adams for vice-president. There was no hope of electing these candidates, but this little party grew, six years later, into the great Democratic Party. In 1858 he was elected to Congress by the Republicans of the 3d District of Massachusetts, and in 1860 he was reelected. In the spring of 1861 President Lincoln appointed him minister to England, a place which both his father and his grandfather had filled before him. Mr. Adams had now to fight with tongue and pen for his country as in school-boy days he had fought with fists. It was an exceedingly difficult time for an American minister in England. Though there was much sympathy for the U. S. government on the part of the workmen in the manufacturing districts and of many of the liberal constituencies, especially in Scotland, on the other hand the feeling of the governing classes and of polite society in London was either actively hostile to us or coldly indifferent. Even those students of history and politics who were most friendly to us failed utterly to comprehend the true character of the sublime struggle in which we were engaged— as may be seen in reading the introduction to Mr. E. A. Freeman's elaborate "History of Federal Government, from the Formation of the Achaean League to the Disruption of the United States" (London, 1862). Difficult and embarrassing questions arose in connection with the capture of the Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell, the negligence of Lord Palmerston's government in allowing the "Alabama" and other Confederate cruisers to sail from British ports to prey upon American commerce, and the ever manifest desire of Napoleon III, to persuade Great Britain to join him in an acknowledgment of the independence of the confederacy. The duties of this difficult diplomatic mission were discharged by Mr. Adams with such consummate ability as to win universal admiration. No more than his father or grandfather did he belong to the school of suave and crafty, intriguing diplomats. He pursued his ends with dogged determination and little or no attempt at concealment, while his demeanor was haughty and often defiant. His unflinching firmness bore clown all opposition, and his perfect self-control made it difficult for an antagonist to gain any advantage over him. His career in England from 1861 to 1868 must be cited among the foremost triumphs of American diplomacy. In 1872 it was attempted to nominate him for the presidency of the United States, as the candidate of the liberal Republicans, but Horace Greeley secured the nomination. He was elected in 1869 a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College, and was for several years president of the board. He has edited the works and memoirs of his father and grandfather, in 22 octavo volumes, and published many of his own addresses and orations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 12-13.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 40-48).

ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS (May 27, 1835-March 20, 1915), railroad expert, civic leader, historian, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Francis Adams [q. v.] and Abigail Brown (Brooks) Adams. His earlier years were passed between Boston and Quincy and by a preference for the latter he became identified with its history as a town. He remembered his grandfather, John Quincy Adams, as an old man, "always writing ... with a perpetual ink stain on the forefinger and thumb of his right hand" (Autobiography, p. 9), and was impressed by his industrious and somewhat solitary life. From private schools the boy went through the Boston Latin School, entered Harvard University in the sophomore year, and graduated in 1856. Critical of his education and career, he looked back with pleasure on his Harvard days as a "period of rapid development and much enjoyment" (Ibid., p. 31). After leaving college he studied law in the office of Richard Henry Dana and Francis E. Parker, leading lawyers of their day; but though he was admitted to practice in 1858, he soon discovered that he had no great liking for the law. As what practice he had occupied but a small part of his time, he was in a position to form relations that developed his as yet unformed aptitudes. In 1848 he had accompanied his father to the Buffalo convention, and during the session of the convention Charles Sumner took him to Niagara Falls. He formed a close and admiring friendship for Sumner and later for Seward, with whom he and his father made a tour in the West in the campaign of 1860, where the young man made some speeches, which were well received. In Dana's office he met the best and took what was offered in the association. He grew up in an atmosphere of political discussion. His hours gave him time to write and he began, as had his father, with newspaper communications on public questions. Visiting his father in Washington in the winter of 1860, he eagerly made use of his opportunity to meet prominent men and gained in assurance as well as knowledge. Seeking a wider audience, he offered to James Russell Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic Monthly, an article on "The Reign of King Cotton," a subject of living interest. Its acceptance gave him encouragement. At this time he kept a diary, as his three forebears had done. Of this a few extracts only have been preserved, enough to cause regret that he destroyed the record in later years.

In February 1861 he again went to Washington, remained for nearly a month, and witnessed the inauguration of Lincoln, still widening his acquaintance with public men, observing, and studying the situation, only to admit in after years that, with almost every one concerned, he had failed to grasp the situation. His father and Seward seemed to him to have a policy "eminently sensible" (Ibid., p. 73), that of holding the border states loyal until the secession movement should recede, the new administration be in power, and the Union reaction encouraged. Adams's vivid account of this interval, with its uncertainties, doubtings, and lack of cooperation, the coming of the President-elect and his loose utterances on the way, and the sentiments of Seward and Sumner, give proof of his gift of description.

Returning to Boston in March, the appointment of his father to the English mission laid upon him the care of the family property, and the outbreak of war made this a heavy responsibility. As all young men were in the militia, he was a member of the 4th Battalion of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, learned the manual and how to march, and was in garrison in Fort Independence in Boston harbor. The training was elementary yet serviceable. He saw the first regiments leave for the South without a strong wish to follow them; he had five weeks of playing soldier at Fort Independence in April and May 1861; and in the following months he watched his friends take service. By the end of October his course of action was determined and he applied for a captaincy in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry. He received a commission as first lieutenant in December and on the 28th of that month he started for South Carolina with his regiment. To Adams it proved a service of three and a half years, and five years passed before he was again a resident of Boston. Summing up his experience, he was inclined to regard his military life as educationally incomparably more valuable than his years in the university; it would have been even more valuable had he been a staff officer, as he more than once had the opportunity to become. A regimental officer, he records, "no matter how high his grade, sees nothing and knows nothing of what is going on-obedience, self-sacrifice, and patient endurance are the qualities most in demand for him; but as for any intelligent comprehension of the game in progress, that for the regimental officer is quite beyond his ken" (Ibid., pp. 135-36). His family letters during his service have been printed in A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-65 (1920) and have a quality of their own. Vivid in description, natural in expression, frank in opinion on men and events, they are shot through with the vein of introspection natural to an Adams. Sharing in two of the great battles, Antietam and Gettysburg, he gives a picture of camp and garrison service that is unmatched. Conscientious in the performance of duty and learning by experience the essentials of routine, he held an enviable reputation and General Humphreys offered him the highest position on his staff. Adams, now a colonel, declined, feeling obliged to remain with his negro regiment-the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. In August 1864 his health began to break down and in May 1865 he was a physical wreck. Mustered out in June of that year, he received the brevet of brigadier-general. He married at Newport, November 8, 1865, Mary Hone Ogden, daughter of Edward and Caroline Callender Ogden of New York.

After eleven months in Europe in 1865-66 he returned, restored in health but without occupation. Realizing his unfitness for the law as a source of livelihood, he took to his pen and wrote on railroads, then the important feature in the economic growth of the country. The transcontinental lines were being (milt with government aid, and in Wall Street the greatest speculators were fighting for control of eastern roads. Adams, seeking for the broad principles that should apply to the development of railroad construction and management, had before him the best of examples. From 1866 to 1873 the building of roads had been overdone. They had been recklessly financed and made the object of stock gambling, involving good as well as doubtful undertakings. Adams analyzed the acts and intentions of the men seeking to gain possession of the Erie road, while wrecking it, and in a series of articles fearlessly attacked them and exposed the criminal acts to which they resorted. The papers attracted as great attention by their courage as by their grasp of some railroad problems of general application. Gathered into a volume- Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871) they have kept a place in the literature of railroads and stock speculations. He also wrote a series of articles on the Tweed Ring, which were printed under the title, "An Episode in Municipal Government," in the North American Review (October 1874, January and July 1875, October 1875) over the name of C. F. Wingate, who had supplied some of the material and to whom Adams characteristically gave the full credit.

When Massachusetts took the lead in establishing a Board of Railroad Commissioners in 1869 Adams because of his evident fitness was appointed one of the three members. The youngest and most active, he performed the labor, controlled the proceedings, and in 1872 became the chairman. This position he held until 1879, producing a series of reports on railway accidents and policy that drew attention to the methods and utility of the board and led to the creation in other states of boards closely modeled after that of Massachusetts. The success of his administration rested upon a full and impartial public examination of facts and a frank presentation to the public of conditions and conclusions. He won the confidence of both operators and public; and the handling of the engineers' strike in 1877 proved the efficacy of his principles, for no other, strike among railway operatives in Massachusetts occurred for twenty-five years. The subject was treated by him in 1902 in Investigation and Publicity as opposed to Compulsory Arbitration and his methods found favor but not acceptance. He left records of his railroad experience in Railroads: Their Origin and Problems (1878) and Notes on Railroad Accidents (1879). In 1878, through the influence of Carl Schurz, he became chairman of the government directors of the Union Pacific Railroad, visited the Pacific coast, and prepared the report. Later, in 1884, he became president of that road, a position forced upon him, only to be ousted from it after six years by Jay Gould and his following, who were none too friendly to Adams because of his exposure of the Erie. Adams foresaw the future importance of the road and from the verge of bankruptcy he raised it to a solvent and efficient system. The later financial situation and legislative measures hindered the completion of his administrative reforms. Through no fault of his own he was unable to meet the maneuvers of the speculative railroad wrecker. Still another recognition of his abilities in railroad affairs was his appointment to the Board of Arbitration of the Trunk Line Railroads, but he held the position for only three years, convinced that the time was not ready for such a board.

Living in Quincy, Massachusetts, he and his brother John Quincy Adams served as moderators in town meetings for twenty years and directed the proceedings of the town government at a time when the place by its size was outgrowing that form of administration. Charles Adams had the more suggestive mind and the greater capacity for labor, but the two brothers left their impress in permanent form. Adams was a member of the school committee, a trustee of the public library, a park commissioner, and a commissioner of the sinking fund. In each of these positions he accomplished results that in retrospect pleased him. He found the school system antiquated and the methods of teaching so imperfect as to be of little value. The average graduate of the grammar school in 1870 could not read with ease, nor could he write an ordinary letter in good English in a legible hand. Uncertain what reforms were necessary, Adams proposed the employment of a trained superintendent and in 1875 gained his end. Out of this came the "Quincy System," which was widely studied and imitated throughout the land and for which Adams was almost wholly responsible. It substituted new methods for the old mechanical ones. In place of memorizing rules, children were to learn to read, write, and cipher as they learned to walk and talk, naturally and by practice. In reading and writing, a geography or history took the place of speller, grammar, and copybook. By 1880 the success of the system seemed assured and Adams's account of the reform-The New Departure in the Common Schools of Quincy passed through six editions.

As the town possessed no public library, provision for one was made in 1871, the cost to be met by town and private subscription. Opened in that year, it proved a great success, and nine years later, through Adams's agency, the town gained the Thomas Crane library building, dedicated in 1882, Adams making the address. In 1874 the town had a debt of $112,000; after nine years of the Adams brothers' management this was reduced to $19,000 and disappeared shortly after. Owing to Adams's plans the town received Wollaston Park, historic as the site of Thomas Morton's Merry Mount. The union of the suggestive and the practical in Adams which had benefited the town by application trained him for wider fields, and in 1892 he was appointed to the state commission to devise a system of parks and public reservations in the vicinity of Boston. The work of this commission has surrounded the city with beautiful connecting roadways, saved Blue Hill from the quarrymen, and preserved the Middlesex Fells as public parks. He also served as chairman of a state commission to report upon the relations of street railways and municipalities, which caused him to study the subject, in European cities and produced useful general legislation based upon his recommendations, which again was copied in other cities.

For twenty-four years from 1882 he was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and was prominent in many lines of its development. The nomination of visiting committees fell to him and he himself gave special attention to the English department. His elaborate reports on conditions produced some changes, but he was never satisfied that he had fully understood the situation and the remedy. To him the Harvard system was "radically wrong," and he expressed his views in two addresses which called out much controversy. His ideas on the education to be given by college and university were developed in A College Fetich (1883), a protest against the compulsory study of dead languages; and, in 1906, near the term of his long service as overseer, in Some Modern College Tendencies, in which he pointed out the complete separation of teacher and individual student and the absence of direction in studies and of the personal influence of instructors. A remedy he found in a group of colleges, each independent and each having its specialty, where the master should know every student. The university should supplement college training. Both papers were constructive in their suggestion and served their purpose of causing reexamination of accepted methods.

Meanwhile another field had opened to him, by accident as he thought, when the citizens of Weymouth asked him to deliver an address on the 250th anniversary of its settlement. Without experience in historical investigation he accepted and in so doing entered upon forty years of historical writing, essentially his "aptitude," from which he derived his greatest pleasure and most lasting reputation. The address was given in 1874, and in the following year he was elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, became a vice-president of it in 1890 and president in 1895, a position he held until his death. In that period he contributed many papers, broadened the scope of the society, and added greatly to its reputation. In 1883 he printed some six copies of Episodes in New England History, a study of the history of Quincy, which in 1892 appeared in an extended form in two volumes as Three Episodes of Massachusetts History and remains a model local history in its form and treatment. In the same year (1883) appeared his edition of Morton's New English Canaan and in 1894 his Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 1636-38, elaborately annotated. He ventured into a somewhat new field in a biography of Richard Henry Dana (1890), and in a life of his father, Charles Francis Adams (1900), both of which have taken a high place in American biography.

Wishing to write a full biography of his father, Adams for a number of years gave close study to the political history of Massachusetts and the War of Secession and its results. Not a little of his material was used in occasional papers and addresses, the more important of which were side studies of his principal theme. In a group of papers he expressed his conception of secession and particularly the conduct of General Lee: "Shall Cromwell have a Statue?" ( 1902), a plea for a statue to Lee in Washington; Lee at Appomattox, etc. (1902); Constitutional Ethics of Secession(1903); and Lee's Centennial (1907), a series that marked the waning of the animosities which had survived the war. Beginning with 1899 and for fifteen years thereafter he prepared a number of papers on the diplomatic history of the War of Secession, the larger part of which appeared in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Drawing largely from the family papers, he was able to give valuable material hitherto unknown, and he enriched it by an interpretation which, always original and individual, often ran counter to accepted conclusions. In 1899 he printed "The Laird Rams," in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. XXXIII; in 1901 he made an address in New York on Before and after the Treaty of Washington (published in 1902), and followed it by a number of essays on the British Declaration of Neutrality, the Trent Affair, the Rams, and British and French mediation. Becoming convinced that the story could not be fully told without having the contemporary English and French diplomatic papers, he went twice to England in 1913, the first visit being due to his appointment to deliver three lectures on American history at Oxford University. These lectures were printed in 1913 as Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity. He gained access to important collections in England, obtained much material, and returned to complete the life of his father. The new material led to a revision of his earlier studies in diploma tic history, but was never fully utilized.

All this does not measure the extent of his activities. He engaged in large business enterprises and with a measure of success. In the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, whither he removed from Quincy, he showed the same interest in town government as he had in Quincy. Throughout his whole career he was keenly alive to the course of political events, took an active share in reform and independent movements, and was an eager participant in the discussions of public policy, both state and national. He began as a Republican, but later became independent of party and remained so to the end. Except for the positions held in Quincy he never was a candidate for nor held an elective office. In 1883 he was offered a nomination for the governorship, but declined it on the ground that a third candidate would divide the party and make the defeat of General Butler less certain. In dealing with public questions, he acted and wrote not as a partisan but in a large way-as had his ancestors before him. He spoke and published on ballot and electoral reform, proportional representation, free trade (he was in favor of a tariff for revenue), civil service reform, currency and finance, taxation, the abuses of the pension system, Panama tolls, the Philippines, and imperialism. To the end he remained active, individual, and suggestive. He died in Washington, March 20, 1915.

"Always independent, sometimes recalcitrant ... by nature inclined to believe that long-established practices of governments, institutions of education, and financial or industrial organizations were likely to be wrong, or at least capable of great improvement," was President Eliot's summary of his life-work (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, XL VIII, 387). "Inheriting a great tradition of public service, he felt the obligations which it imposed, and to that patriotism which was born in the descendant of men who had done so much to found and preserve this nation was added the consciousness of what was due from the members of his family," added Moorfield Storey (Ibid., XL VIII, 387). In his writing, so much of which was for special occasions, he has left a record of his own acts, opinions, and experience, expressed with detachment and independence. Possessing an inquiring and historical mind, with pronounced ability to investigate and present social and historical problems, progressive in matters of political or administrative improvement, yet conservative in action, he showed that he was near to John Quincy Adams in qualities of mind but wanting in the aggressiveness that distinguished the elder statesman. Passing a life largely in controversy, his absolute honesty of purpose and conviction was never questioned.

In addition to what has been mentioned Adams printed a number of historical addresses, of which the following· are the more important: Double Anniversary, '76 and '63 at Quincy (1869); An Oration before the Authorities of Boston, July 4, 1872 (1872); History of Braintree (1891); The Centennial Milestone, Quincy (1892); Massachusetts: its Historians and its History (1893); Sifted Grain and the Grain Sifters (1900); and "'Tis Sixty Years Since" (1913). On politics he published Individuality in Politics (1880) and Emancipation of the Voter (1894). In 1911 he gathered into a volume a number of his papers Studies: Military and Diplomatic, 1775-1865- and before 1912 he prepared an autobiography, published the year after his death.

[The chief sources are Charles Francis Adams 1835- 1915: An Autobiography, with a "Memorial Address" by Henry Cabot Lodge (1916) and tributes in Massachusetts Historical Society Proc., XLVIII.]

W.C.F.


BAILEY, Gamaliel, 1807-1859, Maryland, abolitionist leader, journalist, newspaper publisher and editor.  Publisher and editor of National Era (founded 1847), of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.  Co-founded Cincinnati Anti-Slavery Society in 1835.  Corresponding Secretary, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Assistant and Co-Editor, The Abolitionist newspaper.  Liberty Party.  Co-founder of the Free Soil Party.  Published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1851-1852.

(Blue, 2005, pp. 21, 25-26, 28, 30, 34, 52, 55, 67, 148-149, 166, 192, 202, 223, 248; Dumond, 1961, pp. 163, 223, 264, 301; Filler, 1960, pp. 78, 150, 194-195, 245, 252; Harrold, 1995; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4, 5, 14, 23, 24, 26, 27, 44, 46, 54, 61, 63, 69, 88-89, 91, 103, 106; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 50, 185; Sewell, 1976 3, 33, 77, 136, 155; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 136; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 496-497; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 1, p. 881)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 496-497;

BAILEY, GAMALIEL (December 3, 1807-June 5, 1859), journalist, anti-slavery agitator, was born at Mount Holly, New Jersey., the son of Reverend Gamaliel Bailey, a Methodist clergyman. Soon after his son's birth, his father removed to Philadelphia, where the boy, after attending private schools, entered the Jefferson Medical College, graduating in 1827. For a few months he taught in a New Jersey country school. Then, suffering in health, he shipped before the mast on a trading vessel bound for China. At Canton so much sickness developed among the sailors that he became temporarily ship's surgeon. On returning to America he opened a physician's office, but was soon installed as editor, in Baltimore, of the Methodist Protestant, the short-lived organ of the sect so styled-an unusual appointment considering that Bailey had then no experience in writing and was not a church-member. This position soon failing him, he departed to St. Louis to join an expedition to Oregon, only to find the venture a fraud. Practically penniless, he walked back to Cincinnati. Here a severe epidemic of cholera broke out soon after his arrival (1831), and through friendly influence he became physician in charge of the "Hospital for Strangers," where by his heroic work he gained favorable introduction to the city. In 1833 he married Margaret Lucy Shands of Virginia. In 1834 occurred the Lane Seminary debates on slavery, which immediately enlisted the interest of Bailey, who was lecturing there on physiology. After due reflection he became an ardent abolitionist and associated himself (1836) with J. G. Birney in editing the Cincinnati Philanthropist, the first anti-slavery organ in the West. A year later Bailey became sole editor and proprietor. The influence of his pen in the ensuing years is evidenced by the fact that his office was thrice mobbed; on one occasion printing outfit and building were entirely destroyed but three weeks later new presses were turning out the Cincinnati Philanthropist as usual-a remarkable accomplishment for that time. The third assault (1843) was suppressed by the police and a reaction in Bailey's favor followed; on the strength of this he launched a daily, the Herald. When the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society decided to publish a national periodical in Washington he was the logical choice for editor-in-chief. Disposing of his Cincinnati journals, he assumed his new duties at the nation's capital in January, 1847, and for twelve years efficiently served the Anti-Slavery cause through the National Era, a weekly journal, of which during the Fremont campaign of 1856 Bailey issued a daily edition at considerable personal sacrifice. In 1848 he again faced a mob, which for three days threatened his printing-plant and even his house, the rioters erroneously assuming his connection with the escape of certain slaves. His conduct at this time was thoroughly characteristic. Unarmed he appeared at the door of his house, and calmly entered on a frank statement of his innocence of the charge preferred and his right as an American citizen to complete freedom of utterance. His angry auditors yielded to his persuasive logic and, as he finished his appeal, dispersed. He was not molested again.

The career of the Era was remarkably successful. Whittier, Theodore Parker, Mrs. Southworth, Grace Greenwood, and particularly Mrs. Stowe, with Uncle Tom's Cabin, were contributors, but the directing mind and will were Bailey's. He exerted a wide moral and political influence for the Anti-Slavery movement, the more so because, besides integrity, good business judgment, and determination, he possessed literary ability and a fair-minded tolerance that compelled the respect even of opponents. He condemned the Know-Nothing movement, though it cost him money and friends.

Physically he was delicate-looking, but possessed a good physique, with well-shaped head, intellectual face, and magnetic manner. Political and social Washington flocked to the gatherings at the Bailey home, where the charm and wit of host, hostess, and guests added friends to their cause. In 1853 his health necessitated a trip to Europe, and in 1859, again ill, he embarked on a second voyage thither. He died at sea but his body was brought back to Washington for burial.

[The Atlantic Monthly, June 1866, XVII, pp. 743-51, contains an anonymous article "A Pioneer Editor," dealing with Bailey's career. A more intimate sketch is "An American Salon," by Grace Greenwood, in the Cosmopolitan, February 1890, VIII, 437-47. The files of the National Era (1847-59) reflect the mind and heart of the man. His obituary appeared in the issue of June 30, 1859, and an account of his funeral in that of July 7, 1859, with a tribute by Whittier entitled "Gamaliel Bailey."]

R.S.B.


VAN BUREN, MARTIN (December 5, 1782-July 24, 1862), eighth president of the United States.

While President, Van Buren was against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.  He did this in order to prevent further sectional divide in his party.  He was opposed, in principle, to slavery.  During his presidency, he opposed the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery to the territory.  Free Soil Party nominee for President of the U.S. (lost), 1848.  (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 230, 234;

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. XIX, pp. 152-156).

VAN BUREN, MARTIN (December 5, 1782-July 24, 1862), eighth president of the United States, was born in Kinderhook, near Albany, New York, the third of five children-of Abraham and Maria (Hoes). Van Buren, both of whom were of Dutch descent: Abraham was descended from Cornelis, who was the son of Maes of Buurmalsen and came to New Netherland in 1631 as a leaseholder of Van Rensselaer. Maria Hoes was the widow Van Alen and mother of two children when she married the bachelor Abraham. Martin's parents were frugal truck farmers and keepers of an inherited tavern who became respectable slave-owning citizens in the village. In the inadequate village schools the boy gained a fair knowledge of English and a smattering of Latin. After graduation at the age of fourteen, he became a clerk in the law office of Francis Silvester, a Federalist. He read little from law books; but devoured every Republican pamphlet, journal, or periodical that he could find. Obstinately, but good-naturedly, he refused from the beginning to adopt Silvester's Federalism. By 1800 the yellow-haired law clerk had won a local reputation for his clear thinking, clever presentation and summaries of his petty cases, extemporaneous debating, and stanch Republicanism. As a reward for his campaign for Jefferson (1800) he was sent as a delegate to the congressional caucus in Troy. In 1801 he entered as a clerk the almost clientless office in New York City of the young William Peter Van Ness [q.v.], a devotee of Aaron Burr.

Upon his return to Kinderhook (1803) he was licensed to practice law and became the partner of his half-brother, James I. Van Alen. He flung himself immediately into Republican politics as the champion of the Clinton-Livingston factions; in opposition to Burr, thereby annoying the Van Nesses. His income came from the pockets of Jeffersonian-Republican small landholders in whose cases in court he had often to oppose the eloquent Elisha Williams. By 1807 he was affluent enough to marry, on February 21, the sweetheart of his youth, his kinswoman Hannah Hoes. She bore him four sons: Abraham, John [q.v.], Martin, and Smith Thompson, Soon he moved to Hudson, whereas the newly appointed surrogate (1808--13), he launched himself on an ambitious political career: Already his enemies had pronounced htm a hypocrite, a heartless, selfish, intriguing politician. He was a manipulator in politics, but. he was honest and generous in h1s private and public relations. In taverns as well as court rooms. his ready wit, friendly smile, and cheerful disposition won voters and juries to his side. He was only five feet six and was slender but stood erect like a soldier. He dressed immaculately, as his preceptor Silvester had taught him. Rarely was he incensed at even his worst enemies. He could see no reason why political opponents could not be personal friends.

Until 1821 he was enmeshed in state politics. In his fight for state leadership he moved in a maze of political intrigue and bitterness, but always remained a partisan Republican. In 1807 he was admitted as counselor to practise before the state supreme court. In a race against Edward P. Livingston he was elected state senator in April 1812 on an anti-Bank platform. In August he was deeply chagrined at his failure to receive the appointment as attorney general of the state, which went to Thomas Addis Emmet, and at first blamed DeWitt Clinton. In November, in the legislative session to select presidential electors, he supported Clinton, as the nominee of the Republican caucus,· though the rivalry of the two men was becoming intense. He helped to secure the election of Daniel D. Tompkins [q.v.] as vice-president in 1816 and annoyed Clinton that year by opposing certain details of the canal bill. The next year, however, he supported the canal project against the wishes of his group, defending his course by saying that he could not sacrifice a popular blessing to humiliate Clinton. Van Buren was soon chosen regent of the University of the State of New York (1815), a recognition of his importance. In 1816 he was reelected senator (1816-20) and chosen attorney general of New York (1816-19). He then moved his family to Albany. His wife died in 1819. He never attempted to marry again until late in life when he was rejected by the spinster, Margaret Silvester, who was the daughter of his old preceptor. In the state Senate he was establishing himself as a leader. In 1817, however, Clinton was elected governor, and in 1819, gaining control of the Council of Appointment, he removed Van Buren from the attorney generalship. While bitterly attacking Clinton for cooperating with Federalists, Van Buren acted secretly to reelect Rufus King [q.v.] to the United States Senate (1820) and to gain Federalist aid in defeating Clinton. He asked for a state constitutional convention, which convened in 1821, largely because he opposed the arbitrary power of Chief Justice Ambrose Spencer [q. v.] and favored a reorganization of the judicial system. His chief work in the convention was in securing an agreement between extreme radical s and conservatives that could be accepted by all. As chairman of the committee on appointments, he advocated the decentralization of the power held by the old Council of Appointment, by the distribution of the appointing power among local authorities, the legislature, and the governor. He was unsuccessful in his opposition, probably for the sake of patronage, to the popular election of all judicial officers. (N. H. Carter and W. L. Stone, Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821 Assembled for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution of New York, 1821.)

Clinton had been reelected governor in 1820, largely because of his canal policy, but the "Bucktails" won control of the legislature and in February 1821 elected Van Buren to the United States Senate. In August 1820 his brother-in-law, Moses I. Cantine, and Isaac J. Leake bought the Albany Argus. The paper was given the contract for the state printing. In 1823, when Edwin Croswell [q.v.] became editor, Van Buren wrote that without a paper edited by "a sound, practicable and above all discreet republican ... we may hang our harps on the willows" (quoted in Mackenzie, post, p. 190). Croswell made the Argus a highly influential organ. Van Buren was chief of a group of leaders, soon nicknamed the "Albany regency," which included William L. Marcy, Azariah C. Flagg, Benjamin F. Butler (1795-1858), Edwin Croswell, Michael Hoffman, and later Silas Wright and John A. Dix [qq.v.]. "They were formidable in solidarity," and achieved extraordinary success (Fox, post, pp. 281-86). Van Buren's primacy among them was not owing merely to his amiability and caution, but to his shrewd judgment of measures and men, to his power of analysis and exposition. His political philosophy was practical and sincere. Reckless opposition to public sentiment seemed to him inconsistent with good statesmanship, and he thought that those who dispensed the public bounty would, to a greater or less degree, influence and control the public mind. However, in attacking Clinton he said that a good administration would rally around "the governmental standard the good the virtuous and the capable" (Lynch, p. 175), and he and the other members of the "regency" faithfully performed the duties of the important offices they obtained.

As United States senator he was still preoccupied with factional fights from which he hoped to emerge as the leader of a unified national party. Not until 1823 did he avow his intention openly to support William H. Crawford for president, hoping that by delay he could avoid party strife in New York and give his state a chance finally to choose between opposing candidates. In Washington he was considered the leader of the Crawford faction and he was active in the last and well-known congressional caucus, called to nominate his candidate (Daily National Intelligencer, February 16, 1824). He considered Jackson unpromising and tried to persuade either Clay or Gallatin to run with Crawford. In New York in 1824, Clinton, who was a Jacksonian, was again elected governor, routing the "regency" (C. H. Rammelkamp, " The Campaign of 1824 in New York," Annual Report of the American Historical Association ... 1904, 1905, pp. 175- 201). Van Buren tried to produce a deadlock in the House of Representatives while it was voting for presidential candidates, in order that the Clay-Adams men would have to appeal to New York for a decision, but the prayerful Stephen Van Rensselaer [q.v.] blocked that plan by voting for Adams. Van Buren's early bitterness towards Adams was probably caused by the latter’s offer of the ministerial post in London fo Clinton. In the Senate he voted yea on the tariff bills of 1824 and 1828, guided partisan opposition, served on the finance committee and as chairman of the Judiciary committee. He opposed the sending of envoys to the Panama conference, offering the explanation that he was opposed to all forms of international alliances. In his speeches on internal improvements (Register of Debates in Congress, volume II, 1826, 19 Congress, 1 Session, cols. 20-21, 619, 717-18), he laid down a policy of opposition to which he steadfastly adhered. Congress, he said, had no constitutional right to construct commercial roads and canals within states. His practical objections to the program of his political rivals were strengthened by the consideration that most of the projects would deflect trade from the Erie Canal and New York. So adept was he in politics that he was reelected senator (1827) with the aid of Clinton's friends. By this time, however, he was turning to Jackson, and took the liberty of telling Jackson to refrain from answering defamatory pamphlets. He read such pamphlets and planned the answers, advising editors here and there what to say about campaign issues. After pronouncing a touching eulogium upon Clinton, who died in 1828, he ran for governor of New York in order that a "Buck-tail" state administration' would be in control after he should become Jackson's secretary of state. He resigned the governorship to enter the cabinet after making to the legislature several recommendations, one of which-the enactment of a safety-fund banking law, as suggested by Joshua Forman [q.v.]-was adopted. He returned to Washington society, of which he was enamoured, and became at once the most influential member of the Jackson cabinet.

As secretary of state he favored the introduction of his New York political spoils system into the federal administration. Approached on the subject, he replied: "We give no reasons for our removals" (Lynch, p. 325). Being a widower, he pleased the President by his friendly course towards Peggy Eaton (see sketch of Margaret O' Neale). He helped Jackson write his famous toast, "Our Federal Union-It must be preserved" (Autobiography, p. 414). So completely did he win the President's confidence that Jackson said that Van Buren was "one of the most frank men" he had known, "a true man with nq guile" (Jackson Correspondence, IV, 260). Before the end of 1830 Jackson proposed to Van Buren that they run on the. same ticket, he to resign after a year and leave Van Buren to carry on his policies (Autobiography, pp. 506-07), This Van Buren refused to do and persuaded the President that it was best for him to resign as secretary of state so that the cabinet could' be reorganized. His resignation (April 11, 1831) brought about that of other members and enabled Jackson to eliminate Calhoun's supporters, while his prompt appointment as minister to Great Britain, ostensibly taking him out of politics, showed that he was still in Jackson's confidence (Ibid., pp. 403-08; Bassett, Life of Jackson, II, 522;-25, 532). Although Van Buren seems deliberately to have kept himself ignorant of the Jackson-Calhoun quarrel (Bassett, II, 514-15), he was accused of causing it, and had, heaped upon his head such opprobrious terms as "Flying Dutchman," "Red Fox of Kinderhook," and "Little Magician."

His unusual tact stood him in good stead as secretary of state. He maneuvered Jackson into appointing young energetic ministers, soon established order and confidence in his department, and quieted the fears of the foreign diplomatic corps, who expected trouble with the frontier. President. He settled the old dispute over the West Indian trade between Great Britain and the United States, secured an agreement with France by which that country ultimately and reluctantly paid claims. for compensation for injuries inflicted upon American commerce during the Napoleonic wars, negotiated a treaty with Turkey providing for free access to the Black Sea and a most favored nations clause, and tried to buy' Texas from Mexico, arguing that it was a necessity for the development of the Mississippi Valley and that Mexico would finally lose it through revolution if she did not sell to the United States. Jackson's Maysville Road veto was largely the work of Van Buren, who drafted the message (Autobiography, pp. 315-22; Bassett, Life of Jackson, II, pp. 484-96), and he supported Jackson in his other important domestic policies. In August 1831 he was on his way to London as minister to Great Britain, but in January 1832 his appointment was rejected by the deciding vote of Vice-President Calhoun. He then took his son John with him to travel in France and in Holland.

His return, purposely timed to follow his nomination for vice-president in May 1832, was celebrated extensively in New York City. His graciousness, his courtesy toward even, his bitterest foes, and his charming conversation made him a favored guest at such celebrations as the New York Democrats could provide. In the course of the presidential campaign he aided Jackson in defeating a bill to recharter the Bank of the United States and opposed the theories of nullification, as he did internal improvements at national expense, but. he intentionally remained vague on the tariff. Contrary to some opinions, he did not disagree with Jackson over the removal of the government's deposits in the Bank, but he did hesitate about the time of their removal (Jackson Correspondence, V, 17-82, 183-84). When Jackson appealed to him to have the New York Assembly issue a public defense of his message on nullification, Van Buren wrote the report of the joint committee, endeavoring to show the soundness of the party on the states rights question, while supporting th e President against the nullifiers (Documents of the Senate of ... New York ... 1833, 1833, no. 34; Autobiography, pp. 548-53; Jackson Correspondence, IV, 504-08).

Elected vice-president in 1832 as Jackson's running mate, he proved to be an able and fair presiding officer of the Senate. Not once did he lose the confidence of Jackson. It has been remarked that toward his chief he had a "perfect bedside manner" (J. F. Jameson, Preface to Jackson Correspondence, Vol. IV, p. v). Accepted by his party as Jackson's protege, he was nominated for the presidency by a convention held in Baltimore in May 1835, Richard M. Johnson [q.v.] being nominated for vice-president. His platform was enunciated in the letters he wrote during the campaign, especially in the able letter of August 8, 1836; to Sherrod Williams (Niles' Weekly Register, September 10, 1836, pp. 26-30). It was clear that he opposed the distribution of the surplus in the treasury and the improvement of rivers above ports of entry, and that he would not recharter the Bank under any consideration. He had supported Tallmadge's resolution on the Missouri Compromise calling for the non-extension of slavery and had signed a call for a meeting in Albany to protest against the extension of slavery (1820), but in 1831 he had announced himself as a stanch advocate of the right of slave-owning states· to control slavery within their respective boundaries; He had advised Governor Marcy in 1835 to condemn the activities of the Garrison abolitionists (message of January 5, 1836); and in 1836, in the Senate, he had given a casting vote in favor of the bill barring abolitionist propaganda from the mails (Register of Debates, 24 Congress; 1 Session, Col. 1675; see also T. H. Benton; Thirty Years' View, I, 587-88).

In the election of 1836 there were Democratic defections in the South to Hugh L. White [q.v.] and to Willie P. Mangum [q.v.], who received the vote of South Carolina; and votes were cast for two Whig candidates, William Henry Harrison and Daniel Webster [qq.v.]; but Van Buren had a large electoral majority over the field. As president, he filled the vacancy in the Department of War by appointing Joel R. Poinsett [q. v.], and retained all the other members of Jackson's cabinet. In his optimistic inaugural address (Richardson, post, III, 313-20), which concluded with a tribute to his predecessor, he urged the preservation of American democracy as a world experiment. His desire to hold together the northern and southern wings of his party was manifested in his avowed opposition to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slave states, and to any interference with slavery in the states where it existed. Throughout his administration he was plagued by abolitionist agitators  and those who would silence them, but his chief problems were economic. The panic of 1837 soon bur st upon him. In spite of the fury of clamor against it, he held steadfastly to Jackson's specie circular, and in his message to the special session of Congress (September 4, 1837, Richardson, III, 324-46) he properly said that the panic was the result of over-action in business and over-expansion of credit. Adamant in his determination to divorce the "money power" from the federal government, and distrustful of the "pet banks" as well as of a central institution, he urged that an independent treasury be established. His recommendations that the installment of the surplus scheduled for distribution to the states in October be withheld, and that treasury notes be temporarily issued to meet the pressing needs of the government, were adopted, but the first independent treasury bill failed of passage. Not until 1840 was Van Buren able to secure the necessary legislation, with some compromise in regard to specie payments, and this was repealed by the Whigs in 1841. The independent treasury was not effectually established until 1846. It has generally been regarded as distinctly creditable to Van Buren's foresight, but at the time of his official advocacy of it he alienated conservative, or bank, Democrats, especially in New York and Virginia, while he was denounced by the Whigs for his "heartlessness" in not undertaking measures of relief and particularly for his failure to resort to paper money. He followed his lifelong policy of refusing to answer villifiers, believing always that "the sober second thought of the people" would uphold him.

Though he was embarrassed by American sympathy with the Canadian rebellion of 1837, and the seizure by Canadian authorities in American waters of the insurgent vessel Caroline, his successful effort to preserve peace between Great Britain and the United States was patriotic and commendable, notwithstanding the accusations of the opposing factions that his officials were "the tools of Victoria." His wise policy of conciliation, however, cost him political support along the northern border, as it did also in Maine, in connection with the continued controversy over the northeastern boundary. He refused to annex independent Texas because he wanted no war with Mexico and at heart was opposed to the further extension of slavery. Throughout his administration he and his able cabinet were plagued with the terrible depression, to which crop failures contributed. Calhoun's cooperation, Blair's influential Globe, and Jackson's fidelity could not overcome such obstacles. As president, Van Buren had been far more than a wily politician, but perhaps no amount of courage, patriotism, and ability would have availed to carry through an effective program or to gain popular approval in such troublous times. "Little Van" was a "used up man" in the "hard-cider" campaign of 1840. The Whigs, evading issues and appealing to emotions; triumphantly elected William Henry Harrison' [q.v.] over the decorous President, with an electoral vote of 234 to 60, and a popular plurality of nearly 150,000. Van Buren even lost New York.

He greeted Whigs and Democrats alike at the White House and shattered precedent by calling on President-elect Harrison at Gadsby's. After the inauguration, he retired to the old William Van Ness farm at Kinderhook which he had bought; he now repaired it extensively and called it "Lindenwald." He presently found occasion to deny a statement that he would not again run for the presidency, but he also informed the public that he would take no step to secure another. nomination. He made a tour of the West and Southwest, stopping at ''Ashland" to see Clay, and at "The Hermitage" to pay his respects to Jackson (1842). Many Democrats throughout the North and West rallied to his support. He answered quite frankly, against the advice of informed friends, many inquiries as to his views on political issues. In the well-known "Hammet letter" (Washington Globe, April 27, 1844), published on the same day as Clay's "Raleigh letter," he courageously said that the annexation of Texas would mean war with Mexico and that he saw no need for immediate action, but that he would yield to the popular decision at the polls. This stand probably lost him the Democratic nomination (McCormac, Polk, pp. 224-30). His opponents published a year-old letter of Jackson favoring annexation, and succeeded in getting the two-thirds rule adopted by the Democratic convention at Baltimore (1844). Van Buren withdrew his name for the sake of party harmony and James K. Polk [q.v.] was nominated. His principles, except on annexation, were adopted in the platform. His followers expected recognition, but President Polk soon let it be known that they were not in favor. He offered Van Buren .the London mission purposely to exile him, but Van Buren could not be shelved so easily.

The discontent engendered by his defeat at Baltimore, accentuated by bitter factional strife within the party in New York, turned half the Democrats of the state against the administration. The introduction of the Wilmot Proviso in 1846 provided a rallying point for this discontent and the latent anti-slavery feeling that had been steadily increasing. The next year the "Barnburners" seceded from the state convention, and, meeting at Herkimer, adopted a platform, drafted by Van Buren's son John [q.v.], opposing the extension of slavery to the territories to be acquired from Mexico. Van Buren himself drew up a similar address, which, after revision by his son and Samuel J . Tilden, was issued in February 1848 as the address of "Barnburner" Democrats in the legislature. Both "Barnburners" and "Hunkers" sent delegates to the National Democratic Convention of 1848, but the former at length withdrew. At a convention at Utica in June they nominated Van Buren for the presidency, paving the way for a general convention later. At Buffalo, in August, a gathering of anti-slavery men from all parties, organized the Free-soil party, on a platform of opposition to the extension of slavery into the territories. Van Buren, already nominated by the best organized group in the convention, was chosen to head the ticket. He had become convinced, perhaps at the convention of 1844, that northern Democrats had yielded to the "slavocracy" long enough, but accepted the nomination reluctantly, preferring to remain a farmer ·and to write his memoirs. The Free-soilers helped to defeat Cass by splitting the ticket. For a while Van Buren was popular with the New York Free-soilers, but he alienated them when he supported the compromise measures of 1850. He returned to the Democratic fold in 1852, assured by the elder Blair that he could trust Pierce, but he soon found that his trust was misplaced. He was indignant at the "half baked politicians" who repealed the Missouri Compromise (1854). He hoped the Union would be saved by the election of Buchanan, who promised a peaceful settlement of the Kansas question. Shocked deeply by the Civil War, he found his only solace in his confidence in Abraham Lincoln and refused to be associated with Buchanan, whom he now despised, in holding an ex-president's meeting (suggested by Franklin Pierce) to decide on some course relative to the cause of the Union. After months of suffering with asthma, he died in the summer, despondent over the situation of the Union armies. Funeral services were held in the Dutch Reformed Church of which he had been a faithful member. He left a manuscript, published by his sons under the title, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States (1867). His uncompleted autobiography was edited by J.C. Fitzpatrick and published as "The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren" (Annual. Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918, Vol. II, 1920).

[Elizabeth H. West, Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (1910), is an excellent guide to the voluminous Van Buren MSS. in the library of Congress, acquired to the time of its compilation; there is valuable material about him in that repository in the papers of various persons who were associated with him; and there is a collection of his letters in the New York State Library, at Albany. Valuable printed collections are C. Z. Lincoln, State of New York Messages from the Governors (1909), volume III, pp. 230-59; J. D; Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. volume III (1896); William McDonald, "The Jackson and Van Buren Papers," in Proceedings American Antiquarian Society, volume XVIII (1908); Van Buren-Bancroft correspondence, in Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings; volume XLII (1909); J. S. Bassett, ed., Correspondence of Andrew Jackson (6 volumes, 1926-33). Among biographies may be cited W. M. Holland, The Life and Political Opinions o{Martin Van Buren (1835); W, L. Mackenzie, The Life and Times of Martin Van Buren (1846), a bitter attack but contains letters; W. A. Butler, Martin Van Buren: Lawyer, Statesman and Man (1 862); George Bancroft, Martin Van Buren to the End of His Public Career (1889), to 1841, written for the campaign of 1844; E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren (1888); D. T. Lynch, An Epoch and a Man: Martin Van Buren (1929). For particular phases see J . S. Bassett, "Martin Van Buren," in S. F. Be1i1is, ed., The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, volume IV (1928); J. D. Hammond, The History of Political Parties in the State of New York (2 vols ., 1842); D. S . Alexander, A Political. History of th e State of New York, volumes I, II (1906"); D. R. Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York (1919); William Trimble, "Diverging Tendencies in New York. Democracy in the Period of the Locofocos," in American Historical Review, April 1919; H. D. A. Donovan; The Barnburners (1925); T. H. Benton,. Thirty Years' View (2 volumes, 1856); R. H. Gillet, The Life and Times of Silas Wright (2 volumes, 1874); J. S. Bassett, The Life of Andrew Jackson (1911); E. I. McCormac, James K. Polk (1922); C. G. Bowers, The Party Battles of the Jackson Period (1922); R. C. McGrane, The Panic of 1837 (1924); W. E. Smith, The Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics (2 volumes, 1933); F. J . Turner, The United States: 1830-1850 (1935). For genealogy and local materials, see Harriet C. W. Van Buren Peckham, History of Cornelis Maessen Van Buren ... and His Descendants (1913); E: A. Collier, A History of Old Kinderhook (1914). For obituaries. ·see Evening Post (New York), July 24, 1862; New York Times, N . Y. Tribune, July 25, 1862.]

W. E. S-h.


CHASE, Salmon Portland, 1808-1873, statesman, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1864-1873, abolitionist, member of the Liberty Party, co-founder of the Free Soil Party, and member of the Anti-Slavery Republican Party.  “A slave is a person held, as property, by legalized force, against natural right.” – Chase.

“The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character.  It did not make it a national institution… Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you?...Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery?  It is, fellow citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government.  We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.”

“Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated.  Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability… It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.”

(Blue, 2005, pp. 19, 30, 34, 61, 70-73, 76-78, 84, 123, 124, 177, 178, 209, 220, 225, 226, 228, 247, 248, 259; Dumond, 1961; Filler, 1960, pp. 142, 176, 187, 197-198, 229, 246; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 4-5, 8-9, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 33-36, 61-64, 67, 68, 70-72, 76, 87, 89, 94, 118, 129, 136, 156, 165, 166, 168-169, 177, 187, 191, 193, 195-196, 224, 228, 248; Pease, 1965, pp. 384-394; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 46, 56, 58, 136, 173, 298, 353-354, 421, 655-656; Sewell, 1976; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 585-588; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, p. 34; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 4, p. 739; Hart, Albert Bushnell, Salmon Portland Chase, 1899).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

CHASE, Salmon Portland, statesman, b, in Cornish, New Hampshire, 13 January, 1808; died in New York City, 7 May, 1873. He was named for his uncle, Salmon, who died in Portland, and he used to say that he was his uncle's monument. He was a descendant in the ninth generation of Thomas Chase, of Chesham, England, and in the sixth of Aquila Chase, who came from England and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1640. Salmon Portland was the eighth of the eleven children of Ithamar Chase and his wife Jannette Ralston, who was of Scottish blood. He was born in the house built by his grandfather, which still stands overlooking Connecticut River and in the afternoon shadow of Ascutney Mountain. Of his father's seven brothers, three were lawyers, Dudley becoming a U. S. Senator; two were physicians; Philander became a bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church; and one, like his father, was a farmer. His earliest teacher was Daniel Breck, afterward a jurist in Kentucky. When the boy was eight years old his parents moved to Keene, where his mother had inherited a little property. This was invested in a glass-factory; but a revision of the tariff, by which the duty on glass was lowered, ruined the business, and soon afterward the father died. Salmon was sent to school at Windsor, and made considerable progress in Latin and Greek. In 1820 his uncle, the bishop of Ohio, offered to take him into his family, and the boy set out in the spring, with his brother and the afterward famous Henry R. Schoolcraft, to make the journey to what was then considered the distant west. They were taken from Buffalo to Cleveland by the “Walk-in-the-Water,” the first steamboat on the great lakes. He spent three years in Worthington and Cincinnati with his uncle, who attended to his education personally till he went to England in 1823, when the boy returned home, the next year entered Dartmouth as a junior, and was graduated in 1826. He at once established a classical school for boys in Washington, D. C., which he conducted with success, at the same time studying law with William Wirt. Mr. Chase gave much of his leisure to light literature, and a poem that was addressed by him to Mr. Wirt's daughters was printed and is still extant. In 1830, having completed his studies, he closed the school, was admitted to the bar in Washington, and settled in Cincinnati, where he soon obtained a large practice. In politics he did not identify himself with either of the great parties; but on one point he was clear from the first: he was unalterably opposed to slavery, and in this sentiment he was confirmed by witnessing the destruction of the “Philanthropist” office by a pro-slavery mob in 1836. In 1837 he defended a fugitive slave woman, claimed under the law of 1793, and took the highest ground against the constitutionality of that law. One of the oldest lawyers in the court-room was heard to remark concerning him: “There is a promising young man who has just ruined himself.” In 1837 Mr. Chase also defended his friend James G. Birney in a suit for harboring a Negro slave, and in 1838 he reviewed with great severity a report of the judiciary committee of the state senate, refusing trial by jury to slaves, and in a second suit defended Mr. Birney. When it became evident, after the brief administration of Harrison was over and that of Tyler begun, that no more effective opposition to the encroachments of slavery was to be expected from the Whig than from the Democratic Party, a Liberty Party was organized in Ohio in December, 1841, and Mr. Chase was foremost among its founders. The address, which was written by Mr. Chase, contained these passages, clearly setting forth the issues of a mighty struggle that was to continue for twenty-five years and be closed only by a bloody war: “The constitution found slavery, and left it, a state institution—the creature and dependant of state law—wholly local in its existence and character. It did not make it a national institution. Why, then, fellow-citizens, are we now appealing to you? . . . Why is it that the whole nation is moved, as with a mighty wind, by the discussion of the questions involved in the great issue now made up between liberty and slavery? It is, fellow-citizens—and we beg you to mark this—it is because slavery has overleaped its prescribed limits and usurped the control of the national government. We ask you to acquaint yourselves fully with the details and particulars belonging to the topics which we have briefly touched, and we do not doubt that you will concur with us in believing that the honor, the welfare, the safety of our country imperiously require the absolute and unqualified divorce of the government from slavery.” Writing of this late in life Mr. Chase said: “Having resolved on my political course, I devoted all the time and means I could command to the work of spreading the principles and building up the organization of the party of constitutional freedom then inaugurated. Sometimes, indeed, all I could do seemed insignificant, while the labors I had to perform, and the demands upon my very limited resources by necessary contributions, taxed severely all my ability. It seems to me now, on looking back, that I could not help working if I would, and that I was just as really called in the course of Providence to my labors for human freedom as ever any other laborer in the great field of the world was called to his appointed work.” Mr. Chase acted as counsel for so many blacks who were claimed as fugitives that he was at length called by Kentuckians the “attorney-general for runaway Negroes,” and the colored people of Cincinnati presented him with a silver pitcher “for his various public services in behalf of the oppressed.” One of his most noted cases was the defence of John Van Zandt (the original of John Van Trompe in “Uncle Tom's Cabin”) in 1842, who was prosecuted for harboring fugitive slaves because he had overtaken a party of them on the road and given them a ride in his wagon. In the final hearing, 1846, William H. Seward was associated with Mr. Chase, neither of them receiving any compensation. 

When the Liberty Party, in a national convention held in Buffalo, New York, in 1843, nominated James G. Birney for president, the platform was almost entirely the composition of Mr. Chase. But he vigorously opposed the resolution, offered by John Pierpont, declaring that the fugitive-slave-law clause of the constitution was not binding in conscience, but might be mentally excepted in any oath to support the constitution. In 1840 the Liberty Party had cast but one in 360 of the entire popular vote of the country. In 1844 it cast one in forty, and caused the defeat of Mr. Clay. The Free-Soil Convention that met in Buffalo in 1848 and nominated Martin Van Buren for president, with Charles Francis Adams for vice-president, was presided over by Mr. Chase. This time the party cast one in nine of the whole number of votes. In February, 1849, the Democrats and the Free-Soilers in the Ohio legislature formed a coalition, one result of which was the election of Mr. Chase to the U. S. Senate. Agreeing with the Democracy of Ohio, which, by resolution in convention, had declared slavery to be an evil, he supported its state policy and nominees, but declared that he would desert it if it deserted the anti-slavery position. In the Senate, 26 and 27 March, 1850, he made a notable speech against the so-called “compromise measures,” which included the fugitive-slave law, and offered several amendments, all of which were voted down. When the Democratic Convention at Baltimore nominated Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, and approved of the compromise acts of 1850, Senator Chase dissolved his connection with the Democratic Party in Ohio. At this time he addressed a letter to Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, suggesting and vindicating the idea of an independent democracy. He made a platform, which was substantially that adopted at the Pittsburg Convention, in the same year. He continued his support to the independent Democrats until the Kansas-Nebraska bill came up, when he vigorously opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise, wrote an appeal to the people against it, and made the first elaborate exposure of its character. His persistent attacks upon it in the Senate thoroughly roused the north, and are admitted tohave influenced in a remarkable degree the subsequent struggle. During his senatorial career Mr. Chase also advocated economy in the national finances, a Pacific Railroad by the shortest and best route, the homestead law (which was intended to develop the northern territories), and cheap postage, and held that the national treasury should defray the expense of providing for safe navigation of the lakes, as well as of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

In 1855 he was elected governor of Ohio by the opponents of the Pierce administration. His inaugural address recommended single districts for legislative representation, annual instead of biennial sessions of the legislature, and an extended educational system. Soon after his inauguration occurred the Garner tragedy, so called, in which a fugitive slave mother, near Cincinnati, attempted to kill all of her children, and did kill one, to prevent them from being borne back to slave-life in Kentucky. This and other slave-hunts in Ohio so roused and increased the anti-slavery sentiment in that place that Governor Chase was re-nominated by acclamation, and was re-elected by a small majority, though the American or Know-Nothing Party had a candidate in the field. In the National Republican Convention, held at Chicago in 1860, the vote on the first ballot stood: Seward, 173½; Lincoln, 102; Cameron, 50½; Chase, 49. On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln lacked but four of the number necessary to nominate, and these were given by Mr. Chase's friends before the result was declared. When Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated president, 4 March, 1861, he made Governor Chase secretary of the treasury. The difficulty that he was immediately called upon to grapple with is thus described by Mr. Greeley: “When he accepted the office of secretary of the treasury the finances were already in chaos; the current revenue being inadequate, even in the absence of all expenditure or preparation for war, his predecessor (Cobb, of Georgia) having attempted to borrow $10,000,000, in October, 1860, and obtained only $7,022,000—the bidders to whom the balance was awarded choosing to forfeit their initial deposit rather than take and pay for their bonds. Thenceforth he had tided over, till his resignation, by selling treasury notes, payable a year from date, at 6 to 12 per cent. discount; and when, after he had retired from the scene, General Dix, who succeeded him in Mr. Buchanan's cabinet, attempted (February, 1861) to borrow a small sum on twenty-year bonds at 6 per cent., he was obliged to sell those bonds at an average discount of 9½ per cent. Hence, of Mr. Chase's first loan of $8,000,000, for which bids were opened (2 April) ten days before Beauregard first fired on Fort Sumter, the offerings ranged from 5 to 10 per cent. discount; and only $3,099,000 were tendered at or under 6 per cent. discount—he, in the face of a vehement clamor, declining all bids at higher rates of discount than 6 per cent., and placing soon afterward the balance of the $8,000,000 in two-year treasury notes at par or a fraction over.” When the secretary went to New York for his first loan, the London “Times” declared that he had “coerced $50,000,000 from the banks, but would not fare so well at the London Exchange.” Three years later it said “the hundredth part of Mr. Chase's embarrassments would tax Mr. Gladstone's ingenuity to the utmost, and set the [British] public mind in a ferment of excitement.” In his conference with the bankers the secretary said he hoped they would be able to take the loans on such terms as could be admitted. “If you cannot,” said he, “I shall go back to Washington and issue notes for circulation; for it is certain that the war must go on until the rebellion is put down, if we have to put out paper until it takes a thousand dollars to buy a breakfast.” At this time the amount of coin in circulation in the country was estimated at $210,000,000; and it soon became evident that this was insufficient for carrying on the war. The banks could not sell the bonds for coin, and could not meet their obligations in coin, and on 27 December, 1861, they agreed to suspend specie payment at the close of the year. In his first report, submitted on the 9th of that month, Secretary Chase recommended retrenchment of expenses wherever possible, confiscation of the property of those in arms against the government, an increase of duties and of the tax on spirits, and a national currency, with a system of national banking associations. This last recommendation was carried out in the issue of “greenbacks,” which were made a legal tender for everything but customs duties, and the establishment of the national banking law. His management of the finances of the government during the first three years of the great war has received nothing but the highest praise. He resigned the secretaryship on 30 June, 1864, and was succeeded a few days later by William P. Fessenden. On 6 December, 1864, President Lincoln nominated him to be chief justice of the United States, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Roger B. Taney, and the nomination was immediately confirmed by the Senate. In this office he presided at the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868. In that year his name was frequently mentioned in connection with the Democratic nomination for the presidency, and in answer to a letter from the chairman of the Democratic National committee he wrote: 

“For more than a quarter of a century I have been, in my political views and sentiments, a Democrat, and I still think that upon questions of finance, commerce, and administration generally, the old Democratic principles afford the best guidance. What separated me in former times from both parties was the depth and positiveness of my convictions on the slavery question. On that question I thought the Democratic Party failed to make a just application of Democratic principles, and regarded myself as more democratic than the Democrats. In 1849 I was elected to the Senate by the united votes of the old-line Democrats and independent Democrats, and subsequently made earnest efforts to bring about a union of all Democrats on the ground of the limitation of slavery to the states in which it then existed, and non-intervention in these states by Congress. Had that union been effected, it is my firm belief that the country would have escaped the late Civil War and all its evils. I never favored interference by Congress with slavery, but as a war measure Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation had my hearty assent, and I united, as a member of his administration, in the pledge made to maintain the freedom of the enfranchised people. I have been, and am, in favor of so much of the reconstruction policy of Congress as based the re-organization of the state governments of the south upon universal suffrage. I think that President Johnson was right in regarding the southern states, except Virginia and Tennessee, as being, at the close of the war, without governments which the U.S. government could properly recognize—without governors, judges, legislators, or other state functionaries; but wrong in limiting, by his reconstruction proclamations, the right of suffrage to whites, and only such whites as had the qualification he required. On the other hand, it seemed to me, Congress was right in not limiting, by its reconstruction acts, the right of suffrage to the whites; but wrong in the exclusion from suffrage of certain classes of citizens, and of all unable to take a prescribed retrospective oath, and wrong also in the establishment of arbitrary military governments for the states, and in authorizing military commissions for the trial of civilians in time of peace. There should have been as little military government as possible; no military commissions, no classes excluded from suffrage, and no oath except one of faithful obedience and support to the constitution and laws, and sincere attachment to the constitutional government of the United States. I am glad to know that many intelligent southern Democrats agree with me in these views, and are willing to accept universal suffrage and universal amnesty as the basis of reconstruction and restoration. They see that the shortest way to revive prosperity, possible only with contented industry, is universal suffrage now, and universal amnesty, with removal of all disabilities, as speedily as possible through the action of the state and national governments. I have long been a believer in the wisdom and justice of securing the right of suffrage to all citizens by state constitutions and legislation. It is the best guarantee of the stability of institutions, and the prosperity of communities. My views on this subject were well known when the Democrats elected me to the Senate in 1849. I have now answered your letter as I think I ought to answer it. I beg you to believe me—for I say it in all sincerity—that I do not desire the office of president, nor a nomination for it. Nor do I know that, with my views and convictions, I am a suitable candidate for any party. Of that my countrymen must judge.” 

Judge Chase subsequently prepared a declaration of principles, embodying the ideas of his letter, and submitted it to those Democrats who desired his nomination, as a platform in that event. But this was not adopted by the convention, and the plan to nominate him, if there was such a plan, failed. In June, 1870, he suffered an attack of paralysis, and from that time till his death he was an invalid. As in the case of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, his integrity was shown by the fact that, though he had been a member of the administration when the government was spending millions of dollars a day, he died comparatively poor. His remains were buried in Washington; but in October, 1886, were removed, with appropriate ceremony, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and deposited in Spring Grove cemetery near that city. Besides his reports and decisions, Mr. Chase published a compilation of the statutes of Ohio, with annotations and an historical sketch (3 vols., Cincinnati, 1832). See “Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase,” by J. W. Schuckers (New York, 1874). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 585-588.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 2, Pt. 2, p. 34;

CHASE, SALMON PORTLAND (January 13, 1808-May 7, 1873), statesman, secretary of the treasury under Lincoln, and chief justice during Reconstruction, was born at Cornish, New Hampshire. His line can be traced through nine generations to Thomas Chase of Chesham, England, and through six generations to the American emigrant, Aquila Chase, who settled at Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1640. From Newbury the Chases moved to Sutton, Massachusetts, and later to Cornish, a frontier community on the Connecticut River. The Cornish farmer, Ithamar Chase, father of Salmon, held various state and local offices and was in politics a Federalist; the mother, Janette Ralston, was a woman of vigorous Scotch ancestry. Salmon was the eighth of eleven children. In his childhood the family moved to Keene, New Hampshire, where Ithamar became a tavern keeper. The boy received his early training in the Keene district school and in a private school kept by a Mr. Dunham at Windsor, Vermont.

The death of his father occurred when the boy was nine years old, and shortly after this he was placed under the stern guidance of his uncle, Philander Chase [q.v.], bishop of Ohio, a vigorous pioneer leader in the Protestant Episcopal Church. For two years, the boy lived with the bishop at Worthington, near Columbus, Ohio, entering the church school which the bishop conducted. His days at Worthington were devoted to classical studies, and he was at this time confirmed in the Episcopal Church; but his uncle's hope of making him an Episcopal clergyman was not realized. When Bishop Chase became president of Cincinnati College in the fall of 1821 Salmon entered the college; and a very serious student he seems to have been, to judge by his own statement that he had little to do with college pranks but spent much time "in reading, either under the bishop's direction, or at my own will." "I used to meditate a great deal," he added, "on religious topics; for my sentiments of religious obligation and . . . responsibility were profound" (Schuckers, p. 16). Leaving Cincinnati after less than a year, he spent some months in preparatory study, and then entered as a junior in Dartmouth College, from which he graduated without marked distinction in 1826. He then solicited the influence of another uncle, Dudley Chase, United States senator from Vermont, for a government clerkship; but, this being refused, he conducted a school for boys in Washington, having at one time under his charge sons of all but one of the members of John Quincy Adams's cabinet. In Washington and Baltimore he frequently visited in the cultured home of William Wirt [q.v.]; and his otherwise somber diary glows with youthful romance and sprightliness as it records the evenings spent in the company of the charming Wirt daughters.

Having determined upon his career, he read law under the nominal supervision of Wirt; and with scant legal preparation he was admitted to the bar on December 14, 1829. The following year he settled in Cincinnati, where in addition to legal duties he was soon occupied with anti-slavery activities and with various literary ventures. In 1830 he assisted in organizing the Cincinnati Lyceum which presented a series of lectures, and became himself a lecturer and magazine contributor. In his lecture-essay on the "Life and Character of Henry Brougham" (North American Review, July 1831) his reforming instinct was manifest in his pointed comments on legal abuses of the time. While waiting for clients the lawyer-author sought unsuccessfully to establish a literary magazine for the West, and then turned his energies into the compilation of the Statutes of Ohio (3 volumes, Cinn., 1833-35), a standard work which required heavy labor in the preparation and proved most serviceable to lawyers.

The events of Chase's private life are intimately related in his diary and family memoranda. Three marriages are recorded: the first to Katherine Jane Garniss (March 4, 1834), who died December 1, 1835; the second to Eliza Ann Smith (September 26, 1839), who died September 29, 1845; and the third to Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow (November 6, 1846), who died January 13, 1852. Six daughters were born to him, of whom four died when very young. The births and deaths of his children, and the loss of his wives, are recorded in his diary with a revealing tenderness and a grief which takes refuge in religion. Two children reached maturity: the brilliant Katherine, daughter of his second wife, who became the wife of Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island, and Janette, daughter of his third wife, who became Mrs. William S. Hoyt of New York City.

Despite scornful opposition, Chase prominently defended escaping slaves, and was called the "attorney-general for runaway negroes." He labored unsuccessfully to obtain the release of Matilda, a slave woman befriended by J. G. Birney; and when Birney himself was indicted for harboring a fugitive, Chase carried the case to the supreme court of Ohio, where he made a vigorous argument, contending that Matilda, having been voluntarily brought into a free state by her master, became free (Birney vs.Ohio, 8 Ohio, 230). Unwilling to commit itself to the Chase doctrine with which it was evidently impressed, the court directed the dismissal of the indictment against Birney on merely technical grounds. On another occasion Chase defended Vanzandt (the original of John Van Trompe in Uncle Tom's Cabin), prosecuted for aiding the escape of slaves from Kentucky. This case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and in its argument Chase was associated with William H. Seward, both giving their services without compensation. Chase contended that the federal government under the Constitution had "nothing whatever to do, directly, with slavery"; that "no claim to persons as property can be maintained under any ... law of the United States"; and that the fugitive-slave act of 1793 was unconstitutional. The case was lost for his client; but it did much to bring Chase into prominence.

In politics Chase subordinated party interests to the central issue of slavery. Though formerly a Whig, he joined the Liberty party after the nomination of Birney in 1840; and in various of the conventions of this party, state and national, he was an outstanding leader. The resolutions of the Buffalo convention of August 1843 came chiefly from his pen; and the Southern and Western Liberty Convention at Cincinnati in 1845 (designed as a rallying point for anti-slavery sentiment in the Middle West) was mainly his work. He was active in the Free Soil movement of 1848, presiding at the Buffalo convention, and drafting in part the platform which declared for "no more slave states and no more slave territory." The power of the new party in the nation at large was shown by the defeat of Cass, whose choice had angered the anti-slavery Democrats; and in the Ohio legislature the Free Soilers used their balance of power in alliance with the Democrats to elect Chase to the United States Senate (February 22, 1849). By this time he had come to realize the weakness of a party grounded on a purely antislavery basis, and was turning his attention to the possibility of capturing the Democratic party for the anti-slavery cause.

Chase entered upon his senatorial career at the time of the mid-century crisis over the slavery question. Unwilling to temporize on this issue, and resenting the Southern leanings of the Democratic party, he opposed the compromise measures of 1850; and in 1854 he issued his "Appeal of the Independent Democrats," denouncing Douglas 's Nebraska bill as a "criminal betrayal of precious rights," warning the people that the "dearest interests of freedom and the Union" were in "imminent peril," and imploring all Christians to protest against "this enormous crime." In this "Appeal" we have the key-note of Chase's senatorial policy-a policy of writing slavery restrictions into national law wherever possible, and of paving the way for a new Democratic party that would be free from pro-slavery "domination." He introduced an amendment to Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska bill affirming the right of the people of a territory to prohibit slavery if they wished (as seemed to be implied in Douglas's "popular sovereignty" doctrine); but the amendment was emphatically rejected.

In the altered political horizon produced by the dissolution of the Whig organization and the rise of the Republican party, Chase naturally cast his lot with the Republicans. Meeting in Columbus in July 1855 the new party (perhaps best designated as an "anti-Nebraska" party) nominated Chase as governor; and in a triangular contest in which he had to combat the old Whigs and the old-line Democrats, while suffering embarrassment from his Know-Nothing friends, he was victorious. In 1857 he was reelected as Republican governor; and by this time he had become committed to the new party. As governor his administration was embarrassed by interstate conflicts over the fugitive-slave question, by a threat of Governor Wise of Virginia to invade Ohio in order to suppress alleged attempts to rescue John Brown (to which Chase sent a vigorous reply), and by corruption in the office of state treasurer. One of his achievements as governor was a reorganization of the militia system which added greatly to the state's military preparedness in 1861.

In 1856 Chase was an avowed aspirant for the Republican presidential nomination; but he did not even command the support of the full Ohio delegation, and his position at Philadelphia was much weaker than that of Fremont. Again in 1860 his wide prestige and his consistent record of anti-slavery leadership caused him to be prominently mentioned for the presidency; but his expected strength did not materialize in the convention at Chicago, since the Ohio delegation was again divided, and the firmness of his outspoken opinions caused him to be rejected from the standpoint of "availability." With only 49 votes out of 465 on the first ballot, and with dwindling support as the voting proceeded, his friends gave up the struggle in his behalf; and when the break for Lincoln became apparent, they threw their votes to the Illinois candidate, thus putting Chase in favor with the incoming administration.

When Virginia, in an effort to avert impending war, called the Peace Convention at Washington in February 1861 Chase attended as one of the Ohio commissioners; but he refused to compromise as to slavery extension, and his speeches in the convention, though disclaiming any intention to invade state rights, probably tended to confirm the Southerners' worst fears.

Chase was again chosen United States senator in 1860, but resigned to become Lincoln's secretary of the treasury, which office he held from March 1861 until July 1864. As director of the country's finances during the Civil War it was his task to borrow money from reluctant bankers and investors; to labor with congressional committees in the formulation of financial legislation; to devise remedial measures for a deranged currency; to make forecasts and prepare estimates in days when financial responsibility was diffused and scientific budgets were unknown; to trim the sails of fiscal policy to political winds; to market the huge loans which constituted the chief reliance of an improvident government; and to supervise the enforcement of unusual laws, such as that which provided for the seizure of captured and abandoned property in the South. The low state of public credit was reflected in the suspension of specie payments at the close of the year 1861; the high interest rate ( over seven per cent) on government loans; the marketing of the bonds at a discount; the difficulty of obtaining loans even on these unfavorable terms and the height and instability of the premium on gold. Chase was fortunate in having the valuable assistance of Jay Cooke who, as "financier of the Civil War," performed the same kind of service in marketing bonds that Robert Morris and Benjamin Franklin did for the Revolutionary War. When the bill to provide for immense issues of paper money with the legal tender feature was under consideration in Congress, Chase at first disapproved, endeavoring to obtain support among bankers for his national banking system; but when this support failed he grew non-committal and later gave a reluctant approval. The country was thus saddled with the "greenback" problem without such active opposition as his judgment would have dictated. The national banking system, first established by law on February 25, 1863, was originated by Chase, who formally submitted his proposal in December 1862 in order to increase the sale of government bonds, improve the currency by providing reliable bank notes backed by government security, and suppress the notorious evils of state bank notes. This was perhaps his most important piece of constructive statesmanship.

On the major questions of the war Chase was called upon, as a member of the President's official family, to assist in the formulation of policies. He favored, in a qualified manner, the provisioning of Fort Sumter; urged the confiscation of "rebel" property; approved the admission of West Virginia (the legality and wisdom of which was doubted by certain members of the cabinet); gave reluctant consent to the surrender of Mason and Slidell; urged McClellan's dismissal; approved Lincoln's suspension of the habeas corpus privilege, and, in general gave support to those measures which were directed toward a vigorous prosecution of the war. The closing paragraph in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, invoking the "gracious favor of Almighty God," was penned by him; but he considered the President's policy of liberation weak, and did not approve the exceptions of whole states and large districts from the proclamation as issued. Chase never had that easy comradeship with Lincoln which Seward had; and the President never got on well with his minister of finance. To Chase Lincoln seemed to lack force; and he frequently complained of the chief's lax administration. He spoke with disparagement of the "so-called cabinet," considered its meetings "useless," and privately expressed distrust of the President's whole manner of conducting the public business. Often he was at odds with his colleagues, and many difficulties arose because of the presence of both Seward and Chase in the President's household-Seward the easy-going opportunist, and Chase the unbending apostle of righteousness and reform. In December 1862 the most serious cabinet crisis of Lincoln's administration arose when, in a Republican caucus of the upper House, certain radical senators, partisans of Chase, expressed lack of confidence in the President and demanded a "reconstruction" of the cabinet, by which was intended primarily the resignation of Seward. One of the senators thus wrote of the designs of the Chase men: "Their game was to drive all the cabinet out then force upon him [the President] the recall of Mr. Chase as Premier, and form a cabinet of ultra men around him" (Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, 1925, I, 604). Lincoln handled the situation by arranging a meeting in which the intriguing senators were asked to give open expression to their complaints in the presence of the cabinet. In this meeting Chase was placed in a very embarrassing position. With Lincoln and his colleagues in the room he felt impelled to speak favorably of cabinet harmony in the presence of senators to whom he is said to have remarked that "Seward exercised a back stair and malign influence upon the President, and thwarted all the measures of the Cabinet" (Ibid., p. 603). As a result of these bickerings both Seward and Chase resigned; Lincoln promptly refused to accept either resignation, and matters proceeded as before, except that, as the months passed, Chase's official position became more and more difficult. He honestly differed with Lincoln on essential matters; chafed at the President's inaction and "looseness"; became increasingly impatient at the slow progress of the war, and probably came to believe in his own superior ability to guide the ship of state. Though not quite disloyal to the President, he nevertheless became the center of an anti-Lincoln movement while retaining his position in the cabinet.

Early in 1864 many zealous Unionists, including Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, William Cullen Bryant, and Theodore Tilton, had reached the conclusion that Lincoln's administration was a failure; and a congressional committee of which Senator Pomeroy of Kansas was chairman sounded the call for Chase in a paper known as the "Pomeroy Circular," which was at first distributed confidentially but soon found its way into the press. The paper declared that it was practically impossible to reelect Lincoln; that his "manifest tendency toward temporary expedients" would become stronger during a second term, and that Chase united more of the needful qualities than any other available candidate. Chase, it appears, did not know of the circular until he saw it in a Washington paper; but his criticisms of the administration, as well as his willingness to rely upon the good judgment of those who thought that "the public good" would be promoted by the use of his name, were well known. An element of bitterness was injected into the Chase boom when General Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, delivered an abusive speech against Chase in Congress in April 1864; and the friendliness of the President toward Blair was misconstrued, adding a further strain to the relations between Chase and Lincoln.

When the publication of the Pomeroy circular required an explanation, Chase wrote Lincoln of his entirely passive attitude toward the movement in his behalf, assured the President of his respect and affection, and offered to resign his secretaryship if the President should desire it. Lincoln's reply indicated that he had not been offended and that he desired no change in the treasury department. The Chase movement soon collapsed, partly from mismanagement, and partly for the lack of any solid foundation. The President's party managers played a trump card by setting an early date (June 7) for the Republican or "Union" nominating convention at Baltimore; and when a caucus professing to speak for the Union members of the Ohio legislature indorsed the President, Chase withdrew his candidacy.

He did not long remain in the cabinet. After various differences over appointments, he submitted for the office of assistant treasurer at New York the name of M. B. Field whom Lincoln found unacceptable because of influential opposition in the state. When Lincoln suggested that the appointment would subject him to "still greater strain," Chase replied that he had thought only of fitness in his suggested appointments, referred to the "embarrassment and difficulty" of his position, and, as on various other occasions, presented his resignation. Chase's diary indicates that he could have been induced to remain in the cabinet (Warden, post, p. 618); but, somewhat to his chagrin, Lincoln accepted the resignation, and he unexpectedly found himself out of office. "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity," wrote the President, "I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service."

In the depressing summer of 1864 certain factors seemed to be working for a revival of the Chase candidacy. Distrust of the President, combined with anger at his veto of the Wade-Davis reconstruction bill and depression due to the unfavorable military situation, caused certain anti-Lincoln men to launch a movement for another nominating convention "to concentrate the Union strength on some one candidate who commands the confidence of the country" (New York Sun, June 30, 1889, p. 3). The plan contemplated that Lincoln, renominated in June, should be induced to withdraw. On August 18, 1864, Horace Greeley wrote: "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten. He cannot be elected. And we must have another ticket to save us from utter overthrow" (Ibid.). Charles Sumner approved the movement; and various men who had been active in the earlier effort toward Chase's candidacy, notably Henry Winter Davis, gave it support. Whitelaw Reid, who was very close to Chase, induced the Cincinnati Gazette to come out for Lincoln's withdrawal. Chase's own attitude was at first receptive and non-committal. In September, however, the entire political situation changed with the fall of Atlanta and Republican success in Vermont and Maine. The proposed convention was not held; the whole "radical" movement was abandoned; its sponsors came out for the Baltimore candidates, and Chase himself participated in the campaign for Lincoln, making various speeches in the West.

When Chief Justice Taney died, October 12, 1864, Lincoln's choice fell upon Chase in spite of misgivings as to the former secretary's presidential ambitions-or, as some thought, the President may have felt that he was putting a perpetual candidate in an office where presumably his ambition would be silenced. The years of Chase's chief justiceship fell during the turbulent period of Reconstruction. Occupied with problems of unusual complexity in his judicial capacity, he by no means held aloof from political controversies; and the most determined efforts to put him in the presidency came while he wore the toga of judicial office. Though these years witnessed the fruition of cherished hopes in the eradication of slavery and the restoration of the Union, the satisfaction he might have felt in the accomplishment of these objects was clouded by post-war excesses and corruption which put him out of tune with the party of his later choice, while in his own person he suffered disappointment, affront, and injured dignity. He was probably the least happy of our chief justices. At the time of Lincoln's assassination his life was considered in danger and he was protected by military guard. On April 15, 1865, he administered the presidential oath to Johnson; and it seemed for a time that he might become a sort of mentor to the new president. On various occasions he approached Johnson with advice on Reconstruction policies, at times even drafting public statements to be delivered or issued by the President. Warmly advocating negro suffrage, and favoring the radical policy of Reconstruction, he started in May 1865 on an extended Southern tour which occupied two months and was devoted to confidential investigations concerning conditions in the states lately in "rebellion." At Charleston, South Carolina, and elsewhere he addressed colored audiences, advocating the enfranchisement of their race.

After the war Chase was confronted with the question of reopening federal courts in the South; but he delayed because of the conviction that subordination to the military authorities would be inconsistent with judicial independence; and when at length he did open the United States circuit court at Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 6, 1867, he carefully explained in his address to the bar that this was done only after the habeas corpus privilege had been restored and assurances given that the "military authority [ did] not extend in any respect to the courts of the United States." When planning to reopen the circuit court at Richmond, Virginia, he declined military protection for himself and the court, with the comment: "If I go to Richmond at all, I intend to have no relations with the military, except those which spring from the good-will which subsists between myself and some of the officers" (Warden, post, p. 659).

A painful duty confronting Chase in his capacity as circuit justice was that of presiding at the proposed trial of Jefferson Davis, who, after two years in military custody, was released to the civil authorities in May 1867 and placed under indictment for treason against the United States. The earlier stages of the case cannot be traced here; but on March 26, 1868, in the United States circuit court at Richmond, a grand jury brought in an elaborate indictment against Davis, charging treason under the federal law of 1790, which prescribed the penalty of death. Chase's reluctance to preside at the Davis prosecution may well have explained his repeated postponements in coming to Richmond to hold court. When he did appear he was annoyed by association on the bench with John C. Underwood [q.v.], federal district judge in Virginia, a man whose pronounced anti-Southern prejudices destroyed his judicial impartiality. In December 1868 a motion to quash the indictment was argued before Justices Chase and Underwood, Davis's counsel contending that any prosecution of the Confederate leader for treason would be inconsistent with the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution, in which disability from office-holding, not death, was prescribed for those in Davis's position. Favoring the quashing of the indictment, Chase disagreed with Underwood; the disagreement was certified to the United States Supreme Court; and the Davis case was pending there when, on December 25, 1868, President Johnson issued an unconditional and universal pardon to all who had participated in the "rebellion." The consequent termination of the case, both at Richmond and at Washington, gave genuine relief to Chase (R. F. Nichols, "United States vs. Jefferson Davis,'' American Historical Review, XXXI, 266 ff.).

When the peak of radical fury was reached in the attempt to remove President Johnson, it fell to Chase as chief justice to preside over the Senate sitting as a court of impeachment. The flimsiness of the charges betrayed the whole movement as a partisan attack upon the President because of his opposition to the Stevens-Sumner-Wade policy of Reconstruction; and the great danger was that the judicial character of the whole proceeding would be a mere pretense. Denying that the Senate was a court, the anti-Johnson group sought to subordinate the chief justice as a figurehead, to exclude ordinary rules of evidence, to suppress essential testimony, to deny adequate opportunities for defense, to intimidate individual senators, and to rush the whole proceeding through with railroad speed. Chase, however, refused to accept the role of puppet and effectively asserted his prerogatives as presiding judge. Characteristically, he began by lecturing the Senate for receiving articles of impeachment and framing rules of procedure before being organized as a court. For this he was criticized; and even Warden states that his "hero" erred in this respect; but the question was essentially a judicial one to which the Chief Justice had given earnest study, and his unwillingness to surrender his own functions is more to be admired than censured. He considered himself a part of the court, with the presiding judge's function of seeing that its proceedings from the outset were properly conducted. The Senate radicals were minded to deny him the casting vote; but he successfully defended this right, taking the opportunity, on the occasion of the first tie on a question of adjournment, to announce his vote and declare the tribunal adjourned. He was attacked as a partisan of the President, accused of seeking converts for acquittal, and assailed for playing politics in allowing his name to be used as a candidate for the presidency during the impeachment proceedings. As to the "stories" of rides in which he advised senators on their duty, he himself said that there was a "grain of fact sunk in gallons of falsehood" (Warden, post, p. 696). He did profoundly disapprove of the whole impeachment movement and did not entirely suppress his views; but there is no reason to reject his own statement that he did not seek to influence or convert any one (not even Sprague, his son-in-law), and that until the final vote he had no idea what the result would be.

Chase's incurable ambition for the presidency found its most striking manifestation in 1868, when, after obtaining no notice in the Republican convention, he became the center of a determined boom among the Democrats. Though certain papers, such as the New York Tribune, put forth his name, he made no effort for the Republican nomination. One should perhaps discount his statements in private letters that he would not take the nomination; for he had no chance whatever in that party, whose radical leaders had repudiated him, and whose emotional swing to Grant was irresistible. From the standpoint of party regularity it seemed to many a shocking thing that so prominent a Republican should not only fail to support his party's candidate, but should seek the leadership of the opposing party. For Chase, however, party regularity had never been an imperative motive; he had often described himself as an independent Democrat, and his attitude toward Grant was that of thorough disapproval and lack of confidence. Newspapers and influential leaders began to work for him; and he decided to allow his name to be used. In correspondence and interview he again showed a receptive attitude, and when asked for a public statement he defined his policy, emphasizing universal amnesty and universal suffrage, though realizing that such an attitude would injure his prospects (Schuckers, post, pp. 584-86). In the Democratic convention at New York an active group of Chase managers labored early and late ("Kate" Sprague turning politician and exerting her personal and social influence) ; and a "Chase platform" was circulated among the delegates. When it came to the voting, however, his platform was rejected; Ohio declared for Seymour of New York; and in an atmosphere of pandemonium Seymour was unanimously chosen for the presidential candidacy, with Chase's factious enemy, Blair, as running mate. In his disappointment Chase bore himself in silence and dignity and gave no countenance to efforts of his friends to obtain Seymour's withdrawal or launch a third-party movement.

Meanwhile the court over which Chase presided was faced by a menacing Congress and subjected to unusual strain in deciding a series of perplexing cases. In the Milligan case (4 Wallace, 2), it was held that military commissions for the trial of citizens are illegal, except where invasion or war actually deposes the civil courts. On the main point of this decision Chase concurred; but he dissented from that portion which held that Congress could not have provided for such trials if it had wished. At various times it seemed that the court would have to decide on the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts; but such a result, which would have precipitated an unseemly contest with Congress, was avoided. In Mississippi vs. Johnson (4 Wallace, 475) and Georgia vs. Stanton (6 Wallace, 50), the court refused to enjoin the President or a member of the cabinet from enforcing the Reconstruction Acts. This was in keeping with the court's practise of avoiding political questions. In the McCardle case (6 Wallace, 318), which again involved the legality of Reconstruction legislation, a decision was avoided by an act of Congress which deprived the court of jurisdiction; and the court permitted its functions thus to be limited. Further questions concerning reconstruction were considered in Texas vs. White (7 Wallace, 700), Cummings vs. Missouri (4 Wallace, 277) and Ex parte Garland (4 Wallace, 333). In these controversies the court held the Union to be indissoluble, declared secession a nullity, and denied the validity of test oaths intended to exclude ex-Confederates from officeholding. The application of the Fourteenth Amendment to certain state legislation was considered in the Slaughterhouse Cases ( 16 Wallace, 36), in which the court refused to set itself up as a censor of state laws or invade the domain of civil rights theretofore belonging to the states. Preferring a broader application of the amendment, Chase dissented from this opinion, whose main doctrine has since been abandoned by the court.

In 1870 Chase delivered the opinion declaring unconstitutional that part of the Legal Tender Act of 1862 which made the "greenbacks" legal tender as to contracts existing at the time the act was passed (Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 603). As secretary of the treasury he had issued these government notes; and he was now roundly abused for holding them illegal. When the Hepburn decision was reversed in 1871 (Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wallace, 457), Chase dissented.

It appears that Chase would have accepted a presidential nomination by the Liberal Republicans in 1872; but, aside from other factors, the state of his health would have prevented such a nomination. His vote this year was given to Greeley (Schuckers, post, p. 593). On May 7, 1873, he died of a paralytic stroke in New York.

Chase was tall, massive, handsome in feature, and distinguished in figure and bearing. His portraits show a large head, with deep-set, blue-gray eyes, prominent brow, spirited nostrils, and firm lips. He was near-sighted and may have lacked magnetism and approachableness; but there was something in his mien that bespoke a determined will. His religious convictions were genuine and earnest. Reading his diaries we find how he chided himself on his sinfulness; how at times he declined communion from self-distrust; how he was equally disturbed if at other times his unworthiness failed to oppress him; how he repeated psalms while bathing or dressing; how he pursued his Scripture reading and prayer as a pure matter of conscience. He considered it sinful to waste time. Though fond of chess, he foreswore cards and avoided fashionable society. He once described a charming young lady as one with whom he would have fallen in love had she not been "fond of the gay world" and "disinclined to religion," which he valued "more than any earthly possession" (Warden, post, 190). Though he was socially at ease, a sense of humor was denied him; and when telling a story he would usually spoil it. Schuckers speaks of his "modesty"; but others considered him conceited and accessible to flattery. Though hardly the scholar in politics, he was of a literary turn; and in early life he sometimes expressed himself in verse. There are purple patches in his usually grave diaries to which the historian turns with real delight.

Having the "defects of his virtues," he was self-righteous, opinionated, and difficult to work with. Ambition colored all the more prominent phases of his career. That it diminished his usefulness, impaired his dignity, and blinded his judgment as to currents of public opinion, may be conceded; but it did not prompt unworthy bargains nor excessive electioneering. His moral courage was manifest in his opposition in the Cincinnati council to saloon licenses, his defiance of threatened violence, his advocacy of unpopular causes, and his refusal to truckle for the presidency. As war-time minister of finance he resisted alluring opportunities for private gain. Though puritanical, he was not a fanatic. His anti-slavery activities were held within bounds; and he never affiliated with the Garrison or Phillips type of abolitionist. The antagonism between him and Wade was of long standing; and he disliked the excesses of the radical school of Reconstruction while partly approving its program. His mental operations were steady rather than rapid; his public statements precise and devoid of verbiage. As a speaker he commanded attention rather by conviction and intellectual force than by the orator's art. His opinions as chief justice were characterized by a practical emphasis upon main principles rather than by brilliance or fondness for legal lore.

[Portions of Chase's elaborate diaries and letters have been published in Robert B. Warden, Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1874), in J. W. Schuckers, Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1874), and in the Annual Report, American Historical Association, 1902, volume II. The last mentioned volume includes some interesting letters from Chase to Sumner and a large number of letters from George S. Denison, who, as treasury official at New Orleans during the Civil War, wrote in full concerning conditions in Louisiana. The bulk of the original manuscript of the diary, together with letters and miscellaneous material, is to be found in the library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society at Philadelphia ; and another large collection of Chase manuscripts (over one hundred volumes) is deposited in the division of manuscripts of the Library of Congress The biographical work by Warden is garrulous, extravagantly eulogistic, and of negligible importance, except as a source book; that of Schuckers, though of somewhat more value, is far from satisfactory. The short volume by A. B. Hart in the American Statesmen series (1899), though not free from error, is the best biography. The amusing campaign biography by J. T. Trowbridge, The Ferry Boy and the Financier (1864), is based in part upon a series of autobiographical letters written by Chase himself; but Chase's recollections were often dim, and Trowbridge drew freely upon his own fancy. A series of letters bearing upon the movement in 1864 to displace Lincoln in favor of Chase appeared under the title "Unwritten History" in the New York Sun, June 30, 1889. The following titles may also be noted: Donn Piatt, Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union (1887); Arthur M. Schlesinger, "Salmon Portland Chase, Undergraduate and Pedagogue," in Ohio Archaeology. and Historical Quarterly, volume XXVIII, no. 2 (1910); Norton S. Townshend, "Salmon P. Chase" (Ibid., volume I, 1887) ; Elbridge G. Spaulding, A Resource of War: History of the Legal Tender Paper Money Issued During the Great Rebellion (1869); Chas. Warren, The Supreme Court in U. S. History (1922); Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century (1888).]

J.G.R.

Mr. Chase published a compilation of the statutes of Ohio, with annotations and an historical sketch (3 vols., Cincinnati, 1832). See “Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase,” by J. W. Schuckers (New York, 1874). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 585-588.


JULIAN, George W., 1817-1899, Indiana, Society of Friends, Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana.  Free Soil Party nominee for Vice President of the U.S. (lost), 1852.  Free-Soil Member of U.S. Congress from Indiana, 1850-1851.  Was against the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act.  Fought in court to prevent fugitive slaves from being returned to their owners.  Joined and supported early Republican Party.  Re-elected to Congress, 1861-1871.  Supported emancipation of slaves.  Husband of Ann Elizabeth Finch, who was likewise opposed to slavery.  After her death in 1860, he married Laura Giddings, daughter of radical abolitionist Joshua Giddings. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. III, p. 486; Blue, 2005, pp. ix, 9, 10, 11, 13, 161-183, 210, 225-229, 259-260, 265-270; Riddleberger, 1966; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 54, 354-355; Sewell, 1976; pp. 166, 168n, 172, 176, 185-186, 215, 241, 246-248, 251, 257-258, 267-268, 273, 285; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 245; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 486-487; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 12, p. 315; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928); Political Recollections (1884); George W. Julian (1923),

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 5, Pt. 2, p. 245;

JULIAN, GEORGE WASHINGTON (May 5, 1817-July 7, 1899), abolitionist leader, son of Isaac and Rebecca (Hoover) Julian, was born in a log cabin a mile and a half south of Centerville, Wayne County, Indiana. His father, descended from Rene St. Julien, a Huguenot who came to America about the end of the seventeenth century, was a soldier in the War of 1812 and at one time a member of the Indiana legislature. His mother, of German descent, was a Quaker, whose paternal ancestors were also those of Herbert Hoover. Isaac Julian died when George was only six years old, but by hard work and frugality the widowed mother managed to bring up the family of children. George attended the common schools, at eighteen taught a district school, presently studied law, and in 1840 was admitted to the bar, practising successively in Newcastle, Greenfield, and Centerville. In 1845 he was elected to the state legislature as a Whig, but voted with the Democrats against the repudiation of the Wabash and Erie Canal bonds. About the same time he began to write newspaper articles attacking slavery. Defeated in 1847 in an attempt to secure the Whig nomination for state senator, he presently joined the Free-Soil party and the next year attended the Buffalo convention that nominated Van Buren. His activities as an abolitionist had caused him to be ostracized by many former friends and associates and had even brought about the dissolution of a law partnership with his brother, but the political tide presently turned in his favor and in 1848, having been nominated for Congress by the Free-Soilers, he was elected, with the assistance of many Democratic votes. As a member of the little group of anti-slavery men in Congress he vigorously opposed the compromise measures of 1850. Beaten for reelection in that year, he resumed the practice of law but continued his advocacy of abolition both in speeches and in the press. In 1852 he was nominated for the vice-presidency by the Free-Soil party and took an active part in the campaign.

Julian's real opportunity came with the rise of the Republican party, of which the Free-Soil party had been a forerunner. In 1856 he participated in the Pittsburgh convention that formally organized the new party, and was chosen one of the vice-presidents and chairman of the committee on organization. His earnest fight for human freedom brought reward at last when in 1860 he was elected to Congress. Four times reelected, he speedily won a prominent place in legislative deliberations, and among the committees on which he served was the very important committee on the conduct of the war. He early began to urge the emancipation of slaves as a war measure, advancing the argument of John Quincy Adams, that such a step would be within the war powers of the president and Congress. As chairman of the committee on public lands he had an important part in the passage of the celebrated Homestead Act, a measure, he had urged in 1851. Though he thought Lincoln too slow in some respects and opposed his reconstruction plan, Julian refused to join in the attempt in 1864 to nominate Chase in Lincoln's stead. Julian favored punishing Confederate leaders and confiscating their lands and early advocated the granting of the suffrage to the freedmen. He stood, therefore, with the Radicals in their battles with President Johnson, and in 1867 was one of the committee of seven appointed by the House to prepare the articles of impeachment against the President. In 1868 he proposed an amendment to the Constitution conferring the right of suffrage upon women, a reform he continued to champion to the end of his life.

Failing of renomination in 1870, he devoted much of his time to recuperating his broken health and to compiling a volume of Speeches On Political Questions, published in 1872. He had come to be out of sympathy with the influences that dominated the Republican party nationally and in Indiana, and joined the Liberal Republican movement, presiding during parts of two days over the Cincinnati convention (1872) that nominated Horace Greeley. The next year he removed to Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, and for some years was occupied with writing and championing reform measures. He supported Tilden in the campaign of 1876, and two million copies of his speech, The Gospel of Reform, were distributed by the Democratic National Committee. In the years that followed he contributed notable articles on politics, the public lands, and other subjects to the North American Review and other periodicals. Meanwhile he was writing his Political Recollections 1840-1872, published in 1884. After the election of Cleveland in that year he was appointed surveyor general of New Mexico, a post for which he was particularly fitted. During his administration (July 1885-September 1889) he brought to light many flagrant frauds in connection with public land grants. In 1889 he published a volume, Later Speeches on Political Questions with Select Controversial Papers, edited by his daughter. His last important literary work was The Life of Joshua R. Giddings (1892). In 1896 he supported the Gold Democrats. He died at his home in Irvington in the summer of 1899.

Julian was twice married. His first wife was Anne Elizabeth Finch of Centerville, who died in November 1860, a few days after his election to Congress. His second wife, whom he married December 31, 1863, was Laura Giddings, daughter of Joshua R. Giddings [q.v.]. She died in 1884.

[Consult Julian's own Political Recollections (1884); George W. Julian (1923), by his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke; and Indianapolis Sentinel, July 7, 1899. Julian also left an unpublished diary, containing much interesting and important historical material, which is in the possession of his daughter, Grace Julian Clarke, Indianapolis.]

P. L. H.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.